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SARAH CAVACINI/Palatka Daily News – National Parks Service officials attend a meeting for and talk about the possible Bartram Trail expansion.
Local trail leaders are looking to the federal level to help expand a historic trail that highlights the places throughout Northeast Florida a famed explorer visited in the 1700s.
National Park Service employees spoke to Bartram Trail Society of Florida leaders Tuesday at the St. Johns River Center in Palatka about how they could assist Putnam County, but no decision has been made official.
Society members said their goals include expanding the trail into other surrounding counties and using more land in Putnam County to create public access to other places Bartram visited in North Florida.
“This is what we’re working on, and we sure could use help getting that done,” society President Sam Carr said.
Five representatives from the National Park Service spent three days traveling to Putnam, Flagler, St. Johns, Duval, Clay, Nassau and Baker counties to see each area that has or could become involved with the Bartram Trail expansion project.
“The idea would be … each county would create their own Bartram Trail,” Carr said. “We’re not talking about brick and mortar. We’re not talking about digging ditches. We’re not talking about anything other than designating where those Bartram sites were.”
Alachua, Marion and Seminole counties could also be part of the expansion, according to the society’s website. Putnam is the only county with established sites available to see on bartramtrailsociety.com, but the website states the other county site information is pending.
Another of the society’s goals includes developing other Putnam County sites that aren’t yet available to the public, Carr explained. One of these sites is the Wilson Cypress property, 80 acres of land where the Wilson Cypress Mill used to exist.
Palatka Mayor Robbi Correa said she knows the people who own the property. While she did not name them, she said the owners want to help the land become part of the Bartram Trail.
However, a CSX railroad track runs adjacent to the property Wilson Cypress property.
Ravine Gardens State Park, which is part of the Bartram Trail, also sits just across the railroad tracks.
“That 80 acres is a connecting point for a lot of these trails to the Ravines to a lot of our other resources, and it will definitely be a wildlife preserve access, ecotourism trail that everybody can enjoy,” Correa said.
Stephan Nofield, the national program manager for the National Park Service, said Carr and other Bartram Society officials did a great job of laying out all of the trail’s statewide assets. National Park Service employees threw out ideas such as making the Bartram Trail a destination for people of all ages.
The society already hosts the Bartram Frolic, an educational program for local second-graders, but the federal officials said they hope to get families together to use the trails.
The trails could be treated as a point for economic development and state funding to help the trail expansion.
“You have so many different visitors to target, your local residents, to help them get access to quality of life. People in the region want to go on day trips and do something. You have Mickey, who’s still in the name,” Nofield said, referencing Disney World. “Not everyone wants to hang out in something that’s not real and then national and international tourists.”
Parks Service officials said branding is key to the Bartram Trail’s success.
After they visited all the other counties, Carr said he thought everything went well. The next step is for the Park Service employees to travel back to their headquarters, talk about the experience and decide where to go from here.
“I was just blown away,” Carr said.
