Florida Caverns State Park, 3345 Caverns Road, Marianna, Jackson County, FL

2014 Entry HALS Challenge: Documenting the Landscapes of the New Deal, Honorable Mention recipient.
Significance: Florida Caverns State Park is significant in the early twentieth-century history of Florida as one of the nine state park units created through state planning for natural resource conservation, recreation, and tourism during the New Deal era.

The Florida State Park System had its beginning in 1934 as a result of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program to relieve the economic distress of unemployed American youth during the Great Depression. The large outlay of federal assistance made in Florida during the New Deal era to preserve scenic, historic, and scientific resources of the State includes nine units of the state park system. In 1933, the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was the first New Deal agency to begin operations in Florida. Between 1933 and 1942 the CCC assisted the state in constructing Florida Caverns State Park, Fort Clinch State Park, Gold Head Branch State Park, Highlands Hammock State Park, Hillsborough River State Park, Myakka River State Park, O'Leno State Park, and Torreya State Park, and the Works Progress Administration (WPA) assisted in constructing Ravine Gardens State Park.

The assemblage of buildings, structures, objects, and cultural landscapes of the nine parks together exemplifies the New Deal era National Park Service inspired Rustic Style of master planned public recreational landscape.

This New Deal era cultural landscape of Florida Caverns State Park is at risk of being lost, threatened by the gradual diminishment of historic integrity, as are all nine New Deal era cultural landscapes in the Florida State Parks System. The reason is cultural landscapes are scarcely understood, Cultural Landscape Reports are lacking, maintenance is severely underfunded, and a shortage of technical staff is imperiling historic New Deal era cultural landscapes in Florida.
Survey number: HALS FL-12
Building/structure dates: ca. 1935- ca. 1942 Initial Construction