Exploring Snake Warrior's Island

Snake Warrior's Island was historically a tree island in the eastern Everglades, protecting what was at one time the headwaters of Snake Creek and the oldest eastern Glades settlement of the Seminole Indians. Today, Snake Warrior's Island is a 53 acre park featuring paved trail loops, interpretive signage, an elevated oak hammock, and a recreated wetlands area. 

The Snake Warrior's Island area was once the camp of a man named Chitto Tustenuggee, the legendary Snake Warrior. An important and influential figure, his camp may have been the earliest Seminole village in south Florida. The Snake Creek settlement, called the Miami Camp, is thought to have been founded in the 1820s and was the largest in southeast Florida. 

By 1896, white settlers had claimed most of the land that made up the Snake Creek camp and forced the Seminoles off the property. In the late 1940s, the Perry family bought the property and built two homes and a large dairy farm, unaware of the site’s historical and archaeological significance. A large colonial style house stood in the center of the island, but it sustained severe termite damage and was removed. The second smaller house burned under unclear circumstances. Today, only the terrazo floors of the second home remain. 

In 1989, the Snake Warrior's Island area was marked for a housing development and a shopping center, but the project never got off the ground. In 1992, the property was purchased first by the Trust for Public Lands and then by the state of Florida, thereby protecting the land and preserving its heritage forever. 

In 1999, the Broward County Parks and Recreation Division and the Broward County Office of Environmental Services came together to restore the historic wetlands of Snake Warrior's Island. Because of this restoration, many species of resident and migratory birds visit Snake Warrior's Island daily. In fact, Snake Warrior's Island is part of the Great Florida Birding Trail, a collection of 489 sites in Florida that have been chosen for their excellent bird watching or bird education opportunities.  

Snake Warrior's Island is also a great place for catch & release fishing, wildlife observation, and photography. Come for some exercise, or just to relax along the trail and enjoy the rich history of this land - an island once surround by the waters of Snake Creek and the Everglades, a Tequesta burial ground, a Seminole settlement, and in more recent times, a homestead. 

Photography by Jillian Krickovich

Exploring Bonnet House Museum & Gardens

Bonnet House, a 35 acre estate on a protected barrier island habitat, is accredited by the American Association of Museums and is a designated Fort Lauderdale historical landmark. Seven habitats associated with a barrier island ecosystem exist on the property, including a coastal beach, a freshwater slough, and a mangrove swamp.

Hugh Taylor Birch, a successful Chicago lawyer and early settler of Florida, purchased three miles of coastal wilderness in 1893. By this time, the land had already witnessed 4,000 years of Florida history. In 1984, Dade County archaeologist Robert S. Carr conducted an excavation on the grounds of Bonnet House and discovered historic and prehistoric remains. These remains indicate that the site was frequented by early settlers, both Native Americans and Europeans, due to its upland location. A shell midden left by the Tequesta people indicates that human activity on the site dates back to 2,000 B.C.

One unusual find on the site was a queen conch shell that had a large slit opening made by a metal blade. Most conch tools that are found in southern Florida are associated with pre-Spanish use; however, the incision on this conch tool indicates direct European and Native American contact. Carbon 14 dating supports the hypothesis that the conch was opened with the use of metal tools between 1490 and 1540 AD. This suggests that the Bonnet House grounds may have seen one of the first sites of Spanish contact with the new world. Broken glass bottle fragments were also found, which date from the mid to late 19th century.

Bonnet House's modern history began when Hugh Taylor Birch's daughter Helen married Frederic Clay Bartlett in 1919, and Mr. Birch gave them a 55-acre parcel (now 35 acres) of this land as a wedding present. The property has been owned by the Birch-Bartlett family ever since. The Bonnet House property and Hugh Taylor Birch's gift to the state in 1942 (180 acres of land known as Hugh Taylor Birch State Recreation Area, which is located just north of the Bonnet House) are the only remaining natural coastal environments in Fort Lauderdale.

Mr. Bartlett constructed a home on the property in the early 1920s. Mr. Birch suggested the name "Bonnet House" after the native bright yellow flower, the bonnet lily, which grew in the freshwater marsh on their property. The house, designed as Mr. Bartlett's interpretation of a Caribbean-style plantation, was intended to be used as a winter retreat by the newlywed couple. Here Frederic, an artist, designer, and self-taught architect, and Helen, a published composer and poet, could pursue their arts.

In 1925, Helen died from breast cancer. Frederic's visits to Bonnet House became sporadic until 1931, when he married Evelyn Fortune Lilly. With their marriage, a renaissance occurred at Bonnet House as Frederic and Evelyn began to embellish Bonnet House with the decorative elements that delight visitors today.

The strictest preservation standards are practiced at Bonnet House, but the house still feels as though the owners just stepped out. All the furnishings and decorations on exhibit are original to the estate. Bonnet House's beautiful setting, combined with the whimsical art and architecture, give visitors a respite from the 21st century.

Frederic died in 1953, but Evelyn continued to return each winter. In 1983, Evelyn gave Bonnet House to the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation which was, at the time, the largest charitable gift in Florida history. Evelyn's gift ensured that the site would be preserved for the enjoyment and education of future generations.

Bonnet House has been open to the public year round since 1996. It offers classes on history, art, ecology, horticulture, music, and historic preservation. Educational programs are offered throughout the year and are designed to encourage lifelong learning. Over 180 local residents volunteer at Bonnet House as tour guides, gift shop assistants, and administrative aids.

Bonnet House was included in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Save America's Treasures program in 2004. It was also on the 2008 List of America's 11 Most Endangered Historic Places due to the threat of extensive nearby high-rise development.

Photography by:

Jillian Krickovich

Arch Creek Park "Talk & Walk"

On September 26, during a National Public Lands Day event at Arch Creek Park, Dr. Michele Williams, director of the Southeast Regional Center of FPAN, gave a "talk & walk" tour of the trails at the park. This is a transcript of the fun and informative tour; a video of the events of the day, including the tour, can be found on FPAN's YouTube page. 


The tour was led by Dr. Williams and a member of the Arch Creek Park Staff (ACPS). The tour began at the start of the loop trail behind the museum.

Hunters & Gatherers 

Dr. Williams: One of the important things to remember about the prehistoric people living here in southeast Florida is that they didn’t appear to have grown crops. The first people to grow crops in southern Florida were the Seminole people, who came in the 1800s. So prior to that, the archaeology sites that we’ll see back here were based on people being hunters and gatherers. There’s so much to eat in south Florida that they didn’t need to be a farmer.

Golden Orb Weavers

ACPS: If you look up there, there’s a really nice golden orb weaver web. And since you’re looking at the sunlight through it, you can see where it gets its name from. It’s called the golden orb weaver because the web is spun in a circle, so it’s like an orb. And then if you look at it through the sunlight you can kind of see a little bit of a gold-ish tint to it.

The Midden

ACPS: If you look on the ground, you can just find artifacts anywhere. This is a piece of a conch shell - this is the inner coil. And this was used by the Tequesta Indians from around 500BC till about 1500AD I believe. So they actually lived in this area, and basically what a midden is a trash dump. Kind of like where we throw all of our broken dishes and stuff like that, that’s pretty much what this is here. They were extremely resourceful, so they tried to use every single part of everything that they could possibly find.

For instance, with the conch shell, they would take the conch, bash it open, take the conch out, eat the conch, and then they would use the actual shell for things like a hammer, or maybe a grinding tool, maybe for a chisel, and things like that. We also have shark vertebrae, shark teeth, pottery, and all kinds of things that you can find just in this small area right here.

Dr. Williams: And this midden was associated with the mound probably, correct?

ACPS: Yeah, the midden actually goes all the way into the park, from what I was told, and it kind of connects to the mound.

Dr. Williams: And how many of you would guess that the midden also went that way (towards Dixie Highway) before the road went in? I’m going with “yeah”. And how long of a walk is it to get from here to the ocean?

ACPS: If you walk kind of at a diagonal, it would probably be maybe like a mile.

Dr. Williams: And does this river connect to the ocean?

ACPS: The creek does connect; it goes under 135th street and it kind of curves around behind the shopping center and then goes right out to Biscayne Bay.

Dr. Williams: So the reason that this stuff is here is probably because of that river, which is not very functional anymore, but at one time it was a big, gorgeous, tourist-attraction river. So the prehistoric people would use the places like this that were inland with the nice oak hammocks as a place to hunt deer and raccoons and possums, to gather acorns, to eat the coontie plants, and so this would have been a good resource base. But the point is those conchs didn’t hop up here - somebody brought them here. They didn’t live in that river; they didn’t live in the highway. That represents someone taking animals from the ocean and coming up that creek a couple of miles. This is hard to remember, because we’re so used to seeing shells everywhere because they’re used as paving materials. But that means prehistoric people were bringing them here on purpose. They weren’t eating the conch at the beach; they were making their homes here at Arch Creek and using all those parts of the conch here.

The Mound

ACPS: This is the mound. We’re not really sure what’s under it. I know it’s linked to the midden, somehow, because conch shells have been found here. I’m not really sure much about it. I know most mounds are burial mounds, but I think they said there was only one burial in the park, and it wasn’t over here.

Dr. Williams: If you think about South Florida, what have we got? Water. And so mounds were a place to bury folks, a place to put houses. And this probably would have been 3 or 4 times bigger prehistorically. A lot of mounds were used to fill in other areas during the historic period, because the some people it’s a big hump of clean dirt. One of my favorite things about mounds that archaeologists think that they were used for was to prove that we had enough power to make people build mounds. Isn’t that a good one? So it was a marker of power, just like people build great big giant office buildings we don’t really need, but we build them because it makes people think we’ve got the power to build a big office building.

And these mounds, depending on where they are, sometimes they’re made out of soil, and a lot of them are actually made out of oyster shells in southeast Florida. And the story had always been that these oyster shells mounds were trash; they’d eat the oysters and just throw them away in big piles. But when you excavate one of the mounds, you’ll see that some of the shells they ground up so that it was more stable, some of the shells they put on the outside to enforce the shape.

There are a couple of other good shell mounds you can see in this area. If you go up to Pompano, I know someone’s done a very nice video recently of the Pompano Indian mound that can be accessed through our website. And there’s another really beautiful mound up at Jupiter Inlet. It’s underneath this historic house called the Dubois House, and lo and behold, the house is not on a hill, it’s actually on a giant shell mound that was put there as a marker at the mouth of the Jupiter Inlet.

ACPS: There’s also a burial mound in El Portal, which is a little village, and it’s in the middle of an actual street they made into a little median. Its right in front of a whole bunch of people’s houses, and it’s kind of interesting because you’d never know what it is unless you look at it.

Dr. Williams: The nice thing about here down in Florida is they don’t have basements. So all of those 40’s and 50’s houses that got put in, the chances are there’s still archaeological remains under some of the houses. So it’s something to consider as we tear down those 50’s houses and put up big mansions; things like that Lemon City incident may happen again.

The Ravine

ACPS: There was like a ravine or something running through the park, because as you can see, it runs quite a ways that way. This is actually one of those areas where, I don’t want to get into any haunted stories, but we actually have had some sightings of Seminole Indians and things like that in this area. Apparitions, if you will, out in the distance actually gathering water and things like that. So this park is said to have a couple ghost tales about it, and this is one of the areas where some of them did happen.

The most important part about this area is that it does show proof that there was at one point in time a ravine running through the park. So it’s definitely a reason why people would want to come here, because you have fresh water running through. You’re going to have animals coming through here; they’re going to want to come here to possibly find their meals. So it’s a very nice area.

Photography by:
Jillian Krickovich & Rob Freund

National Public Lands Day at Arch Creek Park

On Saturday, September 26, FPAN joined Arch Creek Park to participate in National Public Lands Day. From a National Public Lands Day brochure:

"There's a special joy in getting our hands dirty when it helps keep our land beautiful. Consider that one-third of the land in America is ours - public land where we can all hike, climb, swim, explore, picnic, or just plain relax. National Public Lands Day is an opportunity to help spruce up these lands while helping us get back to some of the places we love."

At Arch Creek, neighbors and park naturalists helped beautify natural areas by removing invasive plants and mulching and lining trails.

FPAN set up a booth with information about the organization.

Dr. Michele Williams, director of the Southeast Regional Center of FPAN, gave a tour of the trails at Arch Creek Park.

A Tequesta Indian site is marked along the trail. Dr. Williams showed us a Tequesta midden and mound also located within the park.

Photography by:
Jillian Krickovich & Rob Freund

Coming Up: National Public Lands Day at Arch Creek Park

National Public Lands Day

at Arch Creek Park

- a local community building event -

Saturday, September 26, 2009

FPAN will be joining Miami-Dade County in a celebration of National Public Lands Day.

Come help us beautify our natural areas by assisting park naturalists remove invasive plants, mulch trails, and have fun getting back to nature! After getting down and dirty join us for a picnic, and some fun in the sun. Call for more information.

Date: Saturday September 26th, 2009

Time: 9-12 Volunteer Day

12:30-3 Volunteer Picnic

Contact person: Paula Schneeberger or Loren Vanheuveln

Arch Creek Park

Phone: 305-944-6111

Fax: 305-787-5390

E-mail: ArchCreek@miamidade.gov

Flyer: http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/serc/documents/NPLDFlyer2.pdf

To find more FPAN events, go to: http://www.flpublicarchaeology.org/serc/events.html

Exploring Indian Mound Park

Indian Mound Park is located at the corner of SE 13th Street and Hibiscus Avenue in Pompano Beach, overlooking the Intracoastal Waterway. The park is so named because it is the site of a prehistoric Indian burial mound.

The park was first dedicated in 1940 as a bird sanctuary. In 1958, during Pompano Beach's Golden Jubilee, the park was rededicated as Indian Mound Park.

In the 1930s and 40s, many professional and amateur archaeological investigations took place here. Through these investigations, archaeologists determined that the mound was constructed around the year 1300 AD as a place for ceremonial burials. It is thought that the builders of the mound were ancestors of a tribe known as the Tequesta Indians.

Historical Museum of Southern Florida

The Tequesta built the mound by carrying baskets of sand from the beach back to this site. Before burial, the bodies of the Tequesta dead were taken to a special house and allowed to decompose. The bones were then cleaned, bundled together, and taken to the mound to be buried.

The mound is about 16 feet high. A walking path winds through the park and up to the very top of the mound, allowing you to stand where the Tequesta did nearly a thousand years ago.

While you walk the paths, you'll notice there are signs set up that tell you about the Tequesta and the mound.

The park is still a place for birdlovers, with feeders and birdbaths set up to encourage the birds to stay and sing a while.

Benches by the Intracoastal allow you to take in the view of the water.

A picnic table under a huge shade tree provides a great place to enjoy a healthy picnic lunch. (I chose to enjoy a bag of candy instead...) And with plenty of space to run and play, this park is definitely kid friendly.

Leave your car at Indian Mound Park, where parking is free, and take a short 5-minute walk to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean. The beach access is quite picturesque!

Photography by:

Jillian Krickovich & Rob Freund