Once Upon a Time in the Everglades ‘Big Wigs, Fishing Jigs & Cool Rigs’ posters were hot off the press and pinned up all over Collier County!
The 1997 Everglades National Park 50th Celebration of President Harry Truman’s 1947 dedication of the park was a once in a lifetime weekend extravaganza in Everglades City, entertaining dignitaries Vice President Al Gore, Gov. Lawton Chiles, Sen. Bob Graham, Rep. Clay Shaw and Lt. Gov. Buddy MacKay. A masterfully planned schedule of events included swing and country music, alligator wrestling, Seminole Indian storytelling, historical re-enactments, an outdoor film festival, canoe races, an antique swamp buggy race and vintage aircraft show.
The southwestern tip of the Florida peninsula that makes up the national park includes the Ten Thousand Islands and portions of the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, where orchids, cypress trees, pines, palms and mangroves provide a subtropical home for crocodiles, alligators, turtles, manatees and exotic birds.
President Truman expressed his belief over a half-century ago that the creation of the park would ‘preserve the Glades natural beauty forever’, he did not, however, reckon with the impact of agriculture, land development and flood-control efforts outside of the park’s boundary. Man-made disruptions of the normal water-flow patterns require constant vigilance and strategies to safeguard the Everglades, a reminder to all Floridians of the fragility of our state’s heritage and the necessity of protecting it for the enjoyment of future generations.