O'Leno State Park

ABOUT THIS PLACE

O'Leno State Park lies on the upper Santa Fe River about six miles north of High Springs on U.S. 441, in Columbia County. Its strangest feature is what the river does: it drops into a sinkhole inside the park, runs underground, shows itself in sinkholes scattered through a cypress floodplain, and comes back to the surface roughly three and a half miles south at River Rise Preserve State Park. The ground between is a natural land bridge, and people crossed it long before there were roads. There was a town here once, called Keno for its gambling, renamed Leno in 1876 to improve its reputation, with a cotton gin and a sawmill. The railroad went elsewhere and the town died; O'Leno is short for Old Leno. In the 1930s the Civilian Conservation Corps built the park out of native pine and limestone, and their work is still in use: picnic shelters, a log fort that now holds a museum about the corps, and the suspension bridge over the river. Nearly 14 miles of trail carry hikers, cyclists and horses, including the River Trail with the swinging bridge, the short Limestone Trail and the Sink to Rise Trail that runs across to River Rise. Deer, alligators, turtles, raccoons and gopher tortoises live here. Two camping loops hold 61 sites, and the old cabins take groups