PARKS & OUTDOORS
Bill Baggs Cape Florida State Park
Miami-Dade County · South Florida & the Keys
Four hundred acres covering the southern third of Key Biscayne, at 1200 South Crandon Boulevard.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
It was established in 1967 and named for Bill Baggs, editor of The Miami News from 1957 until his death in 1969, who campaigned to keep this end of the key undeveloped. The Cape Florida Lighthouse stands in it and is the oldest standing structure in greater Miami. A marker placed in 2004 records the park's place on the Underground Railroad Network to Freedom: in the early 1820s hundreds of Black Seminoles left from this shore for the Bahamas, and around three hundred people escaping slavery reached freedom from here aboard twenty-seven sloops and a number of canoes. More than a mile of Atlantic beach runs along the eastern side, with swimming and snorkeling. Over two hundred and sixty bird species and more than fifty butterfly species have been recorded, loggerhead turtles nest on the sand, and manatees and American crocodiles are in the surrounding water. Open eight until sundown, every day of the year
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