Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve, Jacksonville FL

Hidden in plain sight between Jacksonville’s city skyline and the Atlantic coast is something ancient: Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve.

At 46,000 acres, this park is slightly bigger than my house and protects salt marshes, forests and most importantly the stories of the Timucua people. 

They lived here for thousands of years and traveled these rivers by canoe, built shell mounds that still rise along the banks and even helped early Europeans build their forts.

But contact with Europeans changed everything. Diseases they had no immunity to devastated the population. By 1698, only 550 Timucua remained from a population once in the tens of thousands. 

Today, the preserve protects what’s left and keeps their story alive. You can hike through oak forests, climb a lookout over the marsh or kayak the same waters the Timucua once called home.

📍 Timucuan Ecological & Historic Preserve, Jacksonville FL