Copy/Repost Hike

With temperatures in the high 60's and a cloudless sky, the day was ideal for a short hike in Palm Beach County's historic Riverbend Park.  In the early 19th century, this was the site of a Seminole village, who had settled in the area knowing that because it was surrounded by swampland, it was considered useless by Spanish settlers.  However, all that changed when Florida became part of the United States, and the Seminoles were ordered to leave Florida and resettle in what is now Oklahoma.  Many refused to leave, and the U.S. Army was sent to round them up and forcibly move them.  This resulted in three separate wars, known as the Seminole Wars, and the two Battles of the Loxahatchee River, in what is now part of Riverbend Park, took place in January of 1838, during the bloody Second Seminole War. The first of these two battles, on January 15th, was won by the Seminoles, but nine days later, the U.S. Army returned with 1,500 troops, and the Seminoles withdrew deeper into the Everglades.  The Riverbend Trail goes by a restored Seminole village, which features the typical Seminole dwellings, called chickee huts, and a dugout canoe in the process of being hollowed out of a felled tree trunk.  After the Seminoles withdrew from the area, white settlers eventually came, and a restored "Cracker" farmstead, is also an interesting feature along this trail.  The rest of the trail borders ponds, swampland, and the ever present Loxahatchee River, offering a slice of a wilder side of Florida, just a few miles from heavily urbanized South Florida.

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