Hole In One Or Hole In None?: Golf Courses Threaten Jonathan Dickinson State Park!

[Music] oh [Music] [Music] all right that was a nice little short 10-minute walk up here to uh the top of hob Mountain good morning everyone I'm Palm Mees Paul your local realtor and guide to South Flor living and welcome back to my channel pretty spectacular View and it absolutely beautiful we're standing on top of hob mountain now I know many of you are going Paul you're in South Florida there's no mountains well technically you're right but this mountain is 86 ft above sea level and it's an ancient Sand Dune so where we're standing was once all underwater and uh over centuries thousands of years however long it took the water as it receded and the waves kept crashing down this Sand Dune was formed and this is what you see what's uh now called the hob mountain and it's a sand scrub and it's one of the features here at Jonathan dickon State Park here in South Florida now normally we would stand up there on the observation deck but it's closed for repairs I don't know if it's ever going to reopen um it's been closed for a while but we're still getting a nice view as we stand up here and it's a little short 10-minute walk from my car along the boardwalk and you come up here and you get these beautiful views as I said there's the inter Coastal Waterway and back in the distance you can see the ocean and and uh as you look around spin around you can see everything up here and uh let me show you some of this you can e some see some spots out here as you look over there there's somebody camping which uh this is a very popular camping destination especially in the winter months and uh this is an 11,500 acre Park that uh was formed in uh 1950 there's some cool history about this park we're going to talk a lot about this park but um I want to first talk about why I'm here because uh if you've been watching the news you may have seen that this park and many other parks in the State of Florida uh have some things going on that a lot of people just aren't happy about Jonathan Dickinson State Park as so many of you know so well is a Florida State Park and historic site in Martin County tonight a proposed plan to develop and design golf courses has raised some eyebrows and has a lot of people voicing ing a lot of concern so recently the park has made headlines in the news because of a project that was I think started back in 2011 and it popped up again and it's called The Great Outdoors initiative and what the state of Florida is thinking of doing or well not thinking they're going to be doing is putting golf courses in public parks like Jonathan Dickson they have a proposed plan to put 28 whole golf coures and a nine-hole golf course and a hotel right here on this beautiful Park and they're thinking about doing that at other Parks across Florida as well and they're putting like Disc Golf and Tennis Courts and pickle ball and they call it the Great Outdoors initiative so a lot of people are rightfully upset about that because I don't want to hear balls being hit neither do many people and all the traffic and everything built on what is left of this pristine Florida nature I mean this is a beautiful Park and you know if you've been following my channel for you know the years that I've been doing these videos for seven years you've probably seen me go to many of the parks like John D MacArthur Arthur R Marshall um the wetlands uh uh green K wetlands and I've shown you all these beautiful Parks because as my tagline says enjoy Paradise it's part of the paradise that I want want you to get out andjoy um you know this channel is not a political Channel it is not a environmentalist Channel I'm a local realtor and I make videos to show people why my family and I have loved living here in South Florida and all the beautiful nature that you can get out enjoy it's part of the the benefits of living in Florida I've always made videos about why I love living in Florida and why I think it's a great place to live and part of the benefit of living here is all the great things you can do outdoor and this is one of them there's not a lot of it left a lot of it's been built on and developed on and uh you know they're thinking of putting golf courses here and Palm Beach county is known as the golf capital of Florida there's over 150 golf courses here in Palm Beach County alone what I'm going to do is I'm going to show you why this is a beautiful park and talk about the history and you know I said it's 11,500 Acres of Scrubs and Coastal lands and oah hatche river which is shaded by centry old cypress trees and you can go out and rent Kayaks and canoes and go fishing and and just enjoy that South Florida lifestyle and we're going to go to a really cool place called Trapper Nelson's cabin he was known as the lockah hatchee Wildman the Tarzan of Florida we're going to take a boat ride over there towards the end of the video we'll show you that little bit of History really cool uh history there we'll talk about the history it was bu a military base a secret military base and we're going to talk about that and show you that but anyway I just wanted to to start up here at the top of the mountain because it's the best of you and it's a beautiful place I did bring my mountain bike so we're going to cruise around the bike and uh get a good video in today so come along with me as I show you Jonathan Dixon State Park all right guys I just happened to bump into Rebecca Rebecca has a little sign which is probably the uh the uh Scrub Jays right one of the birds here one of the endangered species that are out here and she says keep it wild so her and thousands of other South florians are signing petitions and I already saw some people at the front when I came in and they want to keep this place they've lived here and I'm sure she enjoys the nature as much as my wife and my kids have and we don't want a golf course here so Rebecca thank you and appreciate [Music] it so as you can see some of the sand and this Mountain hob mountain is the highest elevation south of lake okobi at 86 fet above sea level and it's part of the Atlantic ocean ridge a series of hills and Sand Dunes that run parallel to the coast of Florida so as you drive up the East Coast you may see more of these as I said all this was obviously under water at one time then the water came down and Rose and so this is the result of uh the waves and just years and years of that process all right let's go talk about a little bit of History if you look around there's some old buildings you don't see any here but there are some old buildings and at one time Believe It or Not There was over a thousand buildings out on this property so let's go talk about that so you saw Rebecca had a little stuffed bird right well that was the scrub J okay and uh its habitat is here and if we remove these scrubs well then these birds will leave because they don't like to be disturbed and so that's one of the many reasons people are upset because of all the wildlife and there are some endangered species out here and we'll talk about that by the way interesting fact it says The Scrub Jays the only Birds found exclusively in Florida they're not found anywhere else and there's a couple other species and plants that are only found here in these sand Scrubs by the way part of the history I forgot to tell you was where the park got its name so looking at my notes so uh Jonathan Dixon it's named after Jonathan Dickson he was a Quaker Merchant who was Shipwrecked along the Florida coast in 1696 and with his family and others he wrote a journal about their experience with local Indian tribes and Spanish settlers as they travel to St Augustine on foot and by boat so that's where the park gets his name but uh as I said it does have a military history it was once known as Camp Murphy and we're going to talk about that so during World War II this was Camp Murphy and it housed over 6,600 men in over a thousand buildings so the camp was named after Colonel William Herbert Murphy and he was famous for equipping airplanes with radio equipment so the camp was established July 5th 1942 6 months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor many locals didn't know it was going on the military just kind of showed up and started acquiring land and seizing land and the camp was formed so the camp served as the southern signal core school and basically they did training for radar if you think about it back then it was a new uh invention right they just came out with radar and so this was a secret camp and this is a school and they would train people to use and I guess understand how radar worked for our military and as I said they had over a thousand buildings here a church a movie theater a power plant and out of all those buildings only about three are actually left here on the uh Park and as I said one of them known as The Vault I think it's this building right back here behind me and it the the Vault to the Atlantic National Bank that was in the Provost building this is an intact two room walk-in Vault although the Vault doors have been removed and one of the Vault doors apparently had to be blown open so I guess they had to pry their way into it and blow it open I I don't know I see rebar on this one over here and it does look like what could have been a vault but I'm not sure so if you look right there you can see it's all boarded up but it it does say that uh it was forced open from the inside there is a mansiz hole in the roof immediately above the doorway with the concrete rebar bent inward so I don't know I imagine that's the doorway covered up and that's the hole and so I think that might have been the Vault right there but the camp was decommissioned in 1944 and then transferred to the State of Florida and it became Jonathan Dickinson State Park in 1950 [Music] all right so we're going to head over to the water area or to the lockah hatche river as we drive through as I told you there's some history here about a man called The lockah hatchee Wild Man or the Tarzan of Florida his name was Trapper Nelson and at one time he owned over a thousand acres of this land so as we drive through here there's 16 different natural communities including scrub Forest Coastal sandill and what they call Upland lakes and then the park also has the locky hatchee river okay remember the lady that we met up on top of the mountain she told me that there's an alligator over under this bridge and as I was driving over I saw it so we're going to go check out this allate a lady just walked by and said he kind of turned around he's being shy let's go see this florid of Gator and he's like he's like people not everyone wants to be on camera I understand that oh there he is wow all right let me zoom in here folks there you go there's your Florida Gator just chilling out look at him man he's just chilling out in the nice cool river water that is so awesome what a great spot getting a little bit of sun a little bit of shade oh and then if I come around here if you look in the back there you see the white look at the crane the Big Crane is just keeping its distance from the gator but uh looking for a bite itself trying to see if he can get us something to eat in that water all right guys here's another view oh the Gator's moving he's backing up and you see the Heron in the background something I just learned living in Florida 35 years and I never knew this but a gentleman just walked by and he said you can tell how big the gator is from the nost to the eyes how many inches that is so then you correlate that to feet either way I'm not going to hop in and wrestl them and that bird keeping its distance but speaking of wrestling alligators the place we're going to right now where Trapper Nelson lived he did wrestle alligators matter of fact he had a whole zoo of wild animals native to Florida around here and uh so we're going to go hop on a boat and go check out Trapper Nelson's cabin I got to go catch my boat it's leaving in 15 minutes all right I made it in time so the first one goes out at 9:00 this one's at 11:00 I think they do another one at 1:00 they're about to load up I need to go hop on and here's there's the lockah hatchee river uh it's $30 to go out on this boat and uh and I better hop on because I'm going to miss my boat ride so this will take us about an hour and a half cruise and we'll get to go to uh chapper Nelson's we usually see them when they're out cunning themselves and do that to get warm this time of the year nothing's trying to get warm everything starting to stay cool so they don't send themselves much all right so we made it on the boat we on the river Queen and we are heading up the lockah hatchee river this is one of the many rivers here in the State of Florida all sorts of beautiful wildlife and this river runs through the Jonathan Dixon State Park you can come out here and you can rent both they have kayak rentals uh paddle canoes you can come out in and also they actually have some power boats you could rent and when I put a link to the park with all that information you can check that out for yourself and see the prices but what I wanted to mention was to get in today it cost me $6 for my to come out here to enter the park and then uh you can do some like I said cabin rentals out here I'll put that information up on the video as well and uh you'll see people come out here and you can do rough camping you saw the RV that was there earlier today and so they do have some Camp facilities with electricity and uh and uh I believe restrooms out there and showers so but uh as I said my wife and them they camped here one time in the tent I wasn't able to but they had a good time other than a raccoon waking up him up in the middle of the night that was not fun my son was little so that kind of freaked him out but hey that's nature right so if you come here in the winter you'll see probably a lot more birds obviously it's hot right now although we see some beautiful birds flying right above us but uh upad of us little so as he was saying the birds usually get here you know in the cooler months and then they leave in May when it's hot so if you come here and you would come visit this place the winter time is a great time because obviously it's not as hot and you'll actually see a lot more birds uh and some of the wildlife will hop out more but we seen some good Wildlife today so uh some birds the alligator the cool tortoise but uh we're coming up to uh Trapper Nelson's and uh this place is pretty cool so we'll be there in just a minute [Music] all right so we're going to take a little tour here but let me tell you a little about this so uh Trapper Nelson uh Homestead what we're out right now the guy lived out here in the 1930s and he would trap and sell furs and trapped animals and he he wrestled Gators and he was kind of like the Tarzan of Florida they called him the lockah hatche Wildman and he he owned about a thousand acres here at one time and all this was his and we're going to go on a tour and we're going to talk about some of the history and you see where his house is and everything but it's a really cool place and you can come out here they do tours out here and you get on the boat and come up here I came up here with a friend on his own boat one time really kind of cool but a neat place and uh he was a Gambling Man and a ladies man and uh pretty cool but uh you know unfortunately um they don't know if he's murdered or he killed himself but he was found at this one place we'll seen a little bit where uh he was died from a shotgun shot to the chest so um he did have a brother that uh went away to prison and swore revenge against his brother so whether his brother killed him who knows maybe he was known to be a ladies man could have been a jealous husband but uh anyway here's the place out here I said where they kept animals and so uh pretty cool had a petting zoo and all that but let's go walk around on the tour so we're I'm going to listen to him we're on a tour but that's the oldest structure here and and that's what Trapper Nelson first saw when he found this piece of land and it was owned by a Scotsman but uh by the end of the day Trapper Nelson owned it so no one really knows what happened there but that's the original building so now we're going to go over to this and that building is called a cheeky Hut or a chiy Hut however you want to pronounce it and you see some of the cages we'll take a look at that in a little bit because he had his own petting zoo folks the guy had the first tourist attraction probably in South Florida resistant but also very insect resistant as well so it's kind of a wonderful so this building here he used to have wealthy people come out here they would park their Yachts right out there right out on the water okay and then they would bring food and they'd have chefs and they would come up here and prepare the food here for the wealthy people and over time I guess it he said it came customary for them to bring some food salmon or something for tropper Nelson um and so they would come out here they also use this place for the Boy Scouts and uh there's some Lofts up here you can see and these ladders right here those are the ladders from the 1930s he would take those ladders down so the boys couldn't wander around at night because obviously there's probably a lot of nocturnal animals and he didn't want the Boy Scouts to get eaten by something or hurt so he would take it down and plus they said he probably didn't want bunch of kids running around we can all relate to that as parents right so but that's pretty cool and that's also where they found his body unfortunately uh he was found dead there in the 1960s so this is his cabin he only had an e grade education but he was somewhat of an auto dieback so some of his traps up there he just learned himself how to do did he build this yes he built all this he poured the concrete um so Trevor Nelson built all of this try to pick that up if you'd like some of the skin people love it some people do it and they have a great time you really can do it yeah you want you want to pick that up yeah is it so no it's not yeah so these are a couple more photos he was a MP when smile so he built all this place himself including this big old thing look at this yeah he moved that around he was a six foot tall guy so he was big 200 something pounds so he's a pretty strong guy now this is pretty cool that's his hurricane log of the Hurricanes that he went through and they were just saying they do more repair on the chiy Hut than they ever have to do on these out here because they've obviously been through some hurricanes themselves but uh solid built conr instruction folks imagine riding through a hurricane out here with Trapper Nelson and all his wild pets he did it I love stuff like this man love history and uh we're going to go here looks like he had a Jeep all right guys I'm in the Trapper Nelson Jeep Paul Mees Paul's here to take you on your tour let's go need some ducks on here some tunes South Florida this was actually his Jeep and they found it in the back of some old garage here in Jupiter in a mechanics garage and then they donated it it used to be painted a peacock blue they said or some kind of blue I'm not sure about what color and then they repainted it because of like Camp Murphy and all that but uh this was Trapper Nelson he would cruise around this can you imagine big old six foot dude cruising around caran those are where he had the alligators you can see the pipe had water coming in here and uh he did used to wrestle alligators and you got this facility here which were the showers for the people that were invited and they said you had to be invited you'd have to send him a postcard and if you responded back you could come out if you didn't you weren't invited you can see where they kept the fresh water pretty cool considering all this was uh built back in the 1930s want to get some water there you go get some water all right that was pretty fun right well the boat's waiting so we got to hop on the boat and we're head back down the river that's a dam right there to help keep the river more of its natural shape so that was pretty cool tour right neat place a lot of neat history Trapper Nelson um as I said visitors from the around the world came to see the legendary Trapper I'm just reading some of the notes and uh you know he handled hand handled venomous snakes wrestled alligators folks could buy souvenirs uh rent tow uh Rob boats and stay overnight in one of those cabins that we showed you so all pretty cool the guy was uh man doing doing tourism way back in the 1930s like uh Florida's still doing today so that's a cool thing if you come here to um Jonathan Dickinson it was uh $30 to go on the tour for myself and uh so you get in here and they do it a couple times a day just depending on the tide and the weather but definitely worth it and uh some people coming up in their own little boat right now so if you guys like these videos be sure to hit the Subscribe button give me a thumbs up because that helps my analytics leave a comment if you've ever been here or if you ever plan on coming here leave a comment what you think about the proposed plan to put two 18-hole golf courses and a 9-hole golf course and a hotel here I know what a lot of you are going to say um but uh I appreciate your support and keep promoting this channel uh this is why I love living in Florida because stuff like this that's why I always say get out and enjoy Paradise cuz this is where I live and hopefully it will be here for you to enjoy as well so we're heading back to the dock and then we get there I may hop on the uh the bike and go for a little cruise and we'll show you a little bit more of the park that was L of fun met some cool people some local Floridians and uh two young ladies they really nice she helped hold the camera for me so I gave her a couple of aruzzi so uh so if you're ever out watching me video and uh you help me out you might get some I may give you a little gift but um they have a visitor center let me turn this around so they have a visitor center here and you can come and uh learn about a lot of the stuff the wildlife and maybe just take a break one of these rocking chairs which look really relaxing get out of this heat I'm going to go inside and see if I can get myself a drink you go back that way and there's a boat ramp and then over here you got camping spots so you can see the people out here they got their RVs and then I think you have like a little um maybe like a house that you can rent out cabins it's uh pretty cool it's hoping to see some Wildlife I tell you watch your speed because they do have a lot of uh deer out here and of course we saw the tortoise earlier and just how amazing it is out here so look folks I am a realtor and and I understand development right I mean you know there's some development that I think is good for some of the city and some things that have been going on I know some of youall might not like that but there's always going to be development but not when you're talking about coming out and ruin something as pristine as this I mean this is beautiful out here and we just don't need it uh like I said there's 150 golf courses here from public to private in Palm Beach County alone so there is plenty of places for you to play golf and you know there's plenty of hotels to stay at and quite honestly we don't need one here ruining this beautiful piece of Florida history in this uh you know land that's been here and um I'm sorry but you know again I don't do political videos uh but I love living here in South Florida and I love you know taking my kid and my wife and uh to these kind of places and I've told people about these kind of places and like I said in my videos I've shown lots of different Parks over the years of making videos because I believe it's one of the really awesome things about moving to South Florida that you get to enjoy year round even when it's hot like today it's still nice out here and uh I don't want to see it ruined so yeah that's you know hey if that makes you upset with me then I'm sorry but you know that's how I feel and uh I'm hoping that uh they don't you know build a golf course out here in Johnson dickon State Park because I like it just the way it is and apparently so does a whole lot of other people here in South Florida and the State of Florida and the world and there's probably people from all the world that are probably upset about this matter of fact if you are from another part of the the world if you're not part of the United States leave a comment down below and tell me have you ever been to this place and what do you think about them putting two 18-hole golf courses and a hotel up here in Jonathan Dixon State Park [Music] well the clouds are coming in so time for me to head out all right guys that's Jonathan Dixon State Park I hope you get out here and you get to enjoy it um I hope they don't build a golf course in a hotel here I hope this place is here for generations to come see it uh hopefully one day when I have grandchildren I can bring them out here and they can enjoy it and uh it looks the same as it does now anyway I'm pal me just Paul all my contact information is down below please be sure to like subscribe all that good stuff and if you want to watch other videos just go check them out on my channel matter of fact there's two more videos right here at the end of this video that you can go check out some more amazing Parks here in what I call Paradise so get out and enjoy Paradise we'll talk to you next time We There goes my hat [Music] [Music]