Ortona Indian Mound Park in Glades County, Florida

Photograph: Ortona FL Lake Wobegon01.jpg by Ebyabe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Restored from the credited Wikimedia Commons file, normalized to the consistent attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Portrait originals retain their complete composition over a softly blurred extension of the same photograph.

Glades County attraction

Ortona Indian Mound Park

Glades County · South Florida & the Keys

Earthworks more than 3,000 years old with a canal system cut for canoes, on the highest natural ground in Glades County.

ABOUT THIS PLACE

The Ortona mounds were raised more than 3,000 years ago, which puts them in the same era as the Miami Circle and well before the Calusa, who later occupied and added to the site. What the people here built was not only mounds but a system of canals through the marsh, cut so canoes could move through the settlement, and that engineering is what the site is known for. Archaeologists have recovered pottery and the seeds of vegetables grown here, so this was a settled place with farming, not a camp. The park covers 60 acres of what is left of Lake Wales Ridge scrub, with sand live oaks hung with ball moss, grapevines, gayfeather and bromeliads. A 0.8-mile interpretive trail runs through the oak hammock and scrub, crossing the preserved canals on bridges, with overlooks along the way, and a boardwalk goes over the highest mound, 22 feet above sea level and the highest natural point in the county. Kiosks explain what was found here. The park is off State Road 78 near the Ortona cemetery, has picnic pavilions, covered tables, a playground and restrooms, and costs nothing. The Ortona Cane Grinding Festival is held the first weekend of February

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official place website ↗

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