Keystone
Heights, Florida
I
bet a lot of you that stop by frequently to follow my Alphabe~Thursday tour of
my home state, Florida, thought I would go with Key West.
Not!
Not
that I don’t like the keys, they are beautiful. But most people already know
about the keys. I want to show some different areas of Florida that most tourists
don’t even know about.
Keystone
Heights was originally called “Brooklyn” but got its present name from
Pennsylvanians that settled here and named it after their home state. Keystone
Heights is located in Clay County Florida.
Keystone Heights is a
sleepy little town with proud people. Its population is less than 2,000. Its clean
simple living, yet it’s not far from the hustle and bustle of Jacksonville or
Gainesville.
Downtown Keystone Heights.
I don’t see a traffic
light do you?
This is rush hour traffic.
One
of the best places from my childhood is Mike Roess Goldhead Branch State Park in Keystone Heights.
Our family traveled 3
weeks out of every year for vacation. If we stayed in Florida, Goldhead Branch
was one of our stays during vacation. We had so much fun there. It was always
crowded. There were always a lot of cool kids to meet and make friends with. It
was a safe place back in the day. Kids would swim, hike, feed gopher turtles pawpaw’s,
stay up late, chase fireflies, bike around the park in the dark, tell ghost stories
around the campfire, and become someone’s girlfriend or boyfriend for the week.
Although those families that stayed in cabins didn’t mix with the campers. They
were on the other side of the Lake. They don’t know what they missed out on.
The Bath house 1939
*Note I wasn’t born yet but it looked the same when I was a
little girl.
The bathhouse today.
Lake Johnson 1939
Lake Johnson today.
1 of 9 Cabins built by the CCC
The CCC Camp- The
Civilian Conservation Corps was created in 1933 by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt to aid young men who were unemployed during the Great Depression.
Gold Head Branch was one of the first four of eight original parks created in
Florida by the CCC. The buildings are still standing and in use today.
The record combination
of years of below-average rainfall and water leaching in to the aquifer has caused
lakes around and in Keystone Heights to dwindle away.
Water is a precious commodity. When it’s
gone it’s gone.
Even the Keystone Heights inland Beach established
in 1924 is dwindling. And apparently full of alligators now. What fun is that?
One
more little piece of information you might not know is that Keystone is far
enough north that it has even snowed there.
Snow! In
Florida!!
Hey what
can I say, we have it all down here!
~~~*~~~
I enjoyed my walk down memory lane by visiting
Keystone Heights. To return to Jenny Matlock’s Alphabe~Thursday click here:
See you
next week for “L” and thanks for stopping by! ~Ames
14 comments:
What an interesting vacation spot, and I love hearing your history with it.
Gorgeous trees, too.
=)
great post, great shots!
Amiko
This looks like a wonderful place to create family memories!
oh, i love to come along on your Florida tours! everyone knows Miami, Orlando, the Keys, but there are so many small towns that deserve to have their spotlight time. Keystone Heights looks like a very nice place! thanks for sharing. (and I love the photos of then and now!)
So there were no aligators when you were swimming there? Too bad the place is being forgotten for family gatherings. There was a place like that in Georgia when I was a kid--Indian springs cameground. I loved it.
We camped almost every vacation we had during my childhood. Of course that camping happened in the North East and the one and only time we visited FL in my childhood, it was to visit the mouse. Seems like such a shame to have missed out on such a lovely place.
I enjoy your views of Florida that show that it's more than Daytona Beach and Miami Beach!
Looks like a nice serene place...and they probably don't even need Keystone cops there, do they?! :)
I am going to have to visit! I'm from PA, but lived in So. Fla for many years, so I really think this is a place I need to go see...
Sleepy little towns are my favorite kind! Swimming with alligators is scarier than swimming with sharks :)
What a fabulous post! I want to mention your blog on mine soon. I hope everyone that lives in FL sees these wonderful posts! Enjoy your weekend! Hugs, your neighbor!
I really like the bathhouse!
I really like the look the whole place actually.
I would enjoy visiting there in winter.
When the alligators were all on vacation!
BTW, I looked at the recipe section of your blog today.
Those are my favorite cookies in the world!
Yum!
Thanks for another Kute link for A-T!
A+
Lovely post! I like that bath house! I really like it all! My SIL grew up in the Florida Keys! Hee Hee! I have never been to Florida. But it sure is a pretty state from what I know of it! Thank you! Anne
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