Juniper Springs Recreation Area

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Dozens of small springs feed the swimming pool here, and together with Fern Hammock Springs next door they put out around thirteen million gallons a day. The millhouse the Corps built in 1935 and 1936 is the unusual part. An undershot waterwheel driven by the spring generated the electricity for the whole recreation area, which was an early piece of renewable power and is still standing, the water being led through a narrow sluice so that it ran under the wheel rather than over it; the building now holds interpretive exhibits and the wheel still turns. Juniper Run leaves the spring as a narrow twisting seven-mile canoe and kayak trail through the Juniper Prairie Wilderness, one of the finest paddles in Florida and not a beginner's route, with a shuttle needed at the far end. Nature trails and boardwalks loop through the hammock, where coontie grows, a primitive cycad. There is a campground and canoe rental on site. Entry is five dollars a person. The mill no longer generates anything; the building now holds exhibits on what the Civilian Conservation Corps did across the country, which in nine years came to more than three thousand four hundred fire towers and over two billion trees planted. Reservations for the campground are made through the federal recreation booking system rather than at the gate