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Up until the early nineteen sixties Saddle Creek Park was an open-cast phosphate mine. After that it was given to the local county authorities to administer and it became a local park facility. It has taken a large part of the time since then to allow nature to fully recover the mines to the point that the casual observer would never think that the park had ever been used for anything else. The park occupies around 750 to 800 acres, If you look at the main map on the tour the park section you will see how the phosphate was mined in strips running from east to west.
Saddle Creek (pictured above), used to be one
of the main water flow channels from the Green Swamp to Peace River,
however, due to the increased urbanization over the last few decades this
has ceased to be the case. There are some current plans to rectify
this situation and hopefully they will be successful.
The county offices for the management and
maintenance of the parks are situated at the northern part of Saddle Creek
Park. They do a great job taking care of the park and also team up
with some of the other departments in the Polk County organization.
Below is a photograph of one of the employees from the natural resources
team maintaining one of the lakes.
There are also some crews who regularly
keep the trails and lakes sides clear and accessible for the park
visitors. There is clearly a balance between making sure the park is
open and accessible to the majority of visitors, but at the same time
protecting the natural resources.
