Fort Cooper State Park

ABOUT THIS PLACE

In 1836, during the Second Seminole War, a battalion of sick and injured soldiers walking to Tampa stopped here to regroup after a month-long battle at the Cove of the Withlacoochee. The Seminoles followed them and kept attacking, so the men threw up a log fort on the shore of Lake Holathlikaha, and 380 of them recovered behind it before moving on. It was named for Major Mark Anthony Cooper, who was charged with protecting them, and abandoned as soon as they could travel. The park now protects over 700 acres of woodland and marsh around that lake. Nearly five miles of self-guided trails cross it, and the Seminole Heritage Trail carries four interpretive kiosks over the ground where this happened. The Withlacoochee State Trail, 44 miles of old railroad, has a paved extension running into the park. Swimming in the lake is no longer allowed, though the beach is used for sunning and volleyball, and the lake is fished and birded; bats come off the bathhouse at sunset. There are picnic facilities and a playground under hardwood hammock by the water. Camping is limited to youth groups and to primitive campers coming off the state trail. Rangers run free programs, and the park is restoring sandhill, a community of which less than three percent remains