PARKS & OUTDOORS
Big Lagoon State Park
Escambia County · Panhandle & Emerald Coast
Seven hundred acres on the Intracoastal Waterway with a four-story tower looking across to Perdido Key and the Gulf.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Big Lagoon State Park covers 706.76 acres about ten miles southwest of Pensacola, along the north edge of Big Lagoon where it runs east toward Pensacola Bay. It was established in 1977. Nine distinct natural communities are inside its boundary, from estuarine marsh to scrubby flatwoods, and more than twenty threatened species live in them, among them gopher tortoises and snowy plovers. The park is a gateway site on the Great Florida Birding Trail, which is the designation given to the places that are worth a birder's first stop in a region. A four-story observation tower looks out over Long Pond and Grande Lagoon and across the water to Perdido Key. There is a 2.6-mile drive through the park, four miles of walking trail, beaches on the lagoon, and a boat ramp onto the Intracoastal Waterway. People boat, canoe, kayak, fish, swim, cycle and watch wildlife. Camping runs to 75 sites with electricity plus a group camp, and there are 17 picnic shelters. Archaeological sites from the Woodland period show that people were gathering shellfish along this shore a very long time ago
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