Collier-Seminole State Park

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The thing to see first here is a machine. The Bay City Walking Dredge stands in the park, a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, and it is the kind of dredge that built the Tamiami Trail across the Everglades: it walked itself forward on timber feet, digging the canal beside the road and using the spoil to raise the roadbed out of the water. Without machines like it there would be no road through this country at all. A memorial to Barron Collier, who paid for much of that road and whose name the county carries, stands in the park as well. The land itself is mangrove swamp, mangrove forest and hammock. A canoe trail of 13.6 miles runs down the Blackwater River. On foot there is a hiking trail of six and a half miles and a nature trail of nine-tenths of a mile with a boardwalk. There is a full campground with youth, group and primitive sites and a recreational vehicle park. Open eight in the morning to sundown, year round