Thursday, March 31, 2022

The Blackwater Heritage Trail - The Making Of


On February 1, 1996, the Blackwater Heritage State Trail was officially begun.  It remains today, over 25 years later, one of the treasures of Santa Rosa County, used by residents and visitors alike to reach back in time and into nature for a refreshing connection to the land. 

Richard Collins, of Chumuckla, was the driving force to achieve this wonderful asset for the citizens of our region.  In 1995 he was still a relatively recent Air Force retiree and was looking for a way to serve the people. Over a number of community meetings he found talk of the old railroad bed running North through Milton to be fascinating. He discovered documents regarding grants with the Federal Government and began a quest to find the funding to transform this unused rail bed into a “Rails to Trails” tourism asset. 

In 1995 Richard Collins attended a Meeting of Greenway Corridor Connections in Clearwater Florida.  Enticing information from maps by Fred Ayer, Director of the Office of Greenways and Trails, encouraged action. These were maps by Gene Ingles, a cartographer out of  St Petersburg ,who had a company called Mapquest. The company is still a major player in online maps. The Chumuckla School is now in possession of a laminated color map of Santa Rosa County, prepared by Gene Ingles and presented in 2020. In 2021 and 2022 the Park was enhanced by over a dozen rest points with benches and with 4 stations for bike repair.


The excitement of the project led Richard Collins to a dedication of several years that envelop the trail development in five phases.   Richard contributed
8000 volunteer hours on behalf of the Blackwater Heritage Trail.  This life contribution was the equivalent of 200 40 hour work weeks … or FOUR YEARS of a typical career. 



In May, 1996, William T. Spitzer, Assistant Director National Recreation and Conservation Programs of the Department of the Interior, recognized Richard in Washington DC as a Conservation Hero.

In Richard's career in the Air Force, he visited Texas, Mississippi, Idaho, Newfoundland, Idaho, Massachusetts, Thailand, Louisiana, Kentucky, South Korea, Thailand, Okinawa, Philippines, New York, Vietnam, Thailand, Texas, Massachusetts, England, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Illinois, Ohio, Texas, and Mississippi.

In 1979, Richard married his Pen Pal. In 1986, he retired and settled in Chumuckla in Santa Rosa County. He put his free time into a heartfelt desire to conserve a legacy. We thank him.

REFERENCES --


FLORIDA PARKS- Blackwater Heritage Trail
PHOTO ALBUM of the TRAIL and HISTORY Documents
GOOGLE Photo Search -- The trail in photos.
REFERENCE PAGE with links to documents.



THE LAND BEFORE

In the rainy months of 1917 the path between the schoolhouse at the Roeville timber camp filled with mud. It was not a great result to the limited conservative wardrobe of the school marm to be exposed to the red and brown hues of the natural wet earth. Dessie, who was a widow woman with a recent teaching certificate from the Florida State College for Women, stepped up onto the log train rails to make her way to the schoolhouse.

The widow Dessie received funding from the Brock family in Pine Log Florida.  Their son, Thomas, who was a teacher, died of pneumonia before many years of marriage passed. So, they funded an education to provide Dessie a livelihood.  In a letter dated October 1917, Dessie wrote to an admirer in Chumuckla to describe some of the rain issues and the use of the rails to avoid the mud. She would, in late 1918, marry the admirer who was to become the writer's Grandfather.  

Jim Campbell and Dessie Lee Howell (Brock) Campbell celebrated the birth of their children in the 1920's in Pace, Florida.  From there, another logging rail ran North into the pine forests to transport raw materials for the Pace Lumber Mill, where Jim was a millwright. They lived in a manager's style company house that stood behind what is now Alyssa's Emporium of shops.   

The muddy road adventures faded from memory but the letter survived in a box discovered by Kittye Campbell Norris some 35 years since the death of Dessie. That railroad ran from the Bagdad Land and Lumber Company, north through Milton and several logging camps (including Roeville) up to Munson. All these main rails had branches that fed logs of Yellow Pine out of the entire landscape.  

That Bagdad Land and Lumber Rail is now the base of the Blackwater Heritage Trail.  But, before it became the scenic trail it is today, it served another roll. To meet the demand for Naval Aviators in WWII, Whiting Field was established.  

The rail was then rebuilt from an unused base to handle larger cars and freight.  It became the main route to deliver aviation gasoline and supplies to Whiting Field. It was a roll the rail accomplished well for decades, until more efficient deliveries by truck became practical.  Then, the rail again fell to disuse.  It lay unattended and bare of any traffic.  The vigor of Florida vegetation was fast erasing all traces of the once critical lifeline to aviation excellence.