Copeland, Florida | |
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Coordinates: 25°57′13″N081°21′21″W / 25.95361°N 81.35583°W [1] | |
Country | United States of America |
State | Florida |
County | Collier |
Elevation | 3 ft (1 m) |
Time zone | UTC-5 (Eastern (EST)) |
• Summer (DST) | UTC-4 (EDT) |
ZIP code | 34137 |
GNIS ID [1] | 295218 |
Copeland is an unincorporated community located in eastern Collier County, Florida, United States. It lies at the junction of State Road 29 and Janes Memorial Scenic Drive (County Road 837). [1] Copeland lies along the western border of the Big Cypress National Preserve, and wedged beside the Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park to the east. The hamlet of Jerome is a few miles to the north, while Carnestown lies a few miles to the south at the intersection of State Road 29 and U.S. Route 41.
Copeland was founded in 1932 and named in honor of David Graham Copeland, [2] a U.S. Navy engineer [3] who helped plan the Tamiami Trail and began a family-owned farming business at this location.
During the Second World War, the demand for cypress brought the timber industry to southwest Florida. The newly established Lee Cypress Lumber Company began operations in 1943 and made Copeland a company town. The operation was overseen by superintendent J.R. Terill, and Copeland served as the base camp for over three hundred sawyers, railroad workers, and their families. Homes were made of cypress and built on-site as the population increased. Most of the people living at Copeland were black and the community was segregated with separate facilities for white and black workers. The town boasted a commissary and a few "jukes" for entertainment. Almost all functions including entertainment were overseen by the Lee Cypress Company. A large railroad depot handled the logs that were brought out of the Fakahatchee Strand and other parts of the Big Cypress Swamp, the current Jane's Scenic Drive following the route of the main railroad line through Fakahatchee. The logs were sent to the massive sawmill complex in Perry, Florida, four hundred miles north. The last steam locomotive used to carry timber is on display at the Collier County Museum in Naples. Copeland's population dwindled quickly in the late Fifties as the timber industry concluded its operations in 1957. The population was estimated at 275 people in 2006. [4] Copeland also lies within a Florida panther habitat. Copeland is part of the Naples – Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Copeland was also the location of the low-budget, 1976 horror movie, Blood Stalkers.
Collier County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, its population was 375,752; an increase of 16.9% since the 2010 United States Census. Its county seat is East Naples, where the county offices were moved from Everglades City in 1962.
Everglades City is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States, of which it was once the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the population is 400. Collier County comprises the Naples–Immokalee–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Gulf Coast Visitor Center for Everglades National Park is in Everglades City.
Marco Island is a city and barrier island in Collier County, Florida, located 20 miles (32 km) south of Naples on the Gulf Coast of the United States. It is the largest barrier island within Southwest Florida's Ten Thousand Islands area, which extends southerly to Cape Sable. Marco Island is home to an affluent beach community with resort amenities.
Naples is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population was 19,115. Naples is a principal city of the Naples-Marco Island, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which had a population of about 375,752 as of 2020. Naples' USPS City population includes most of the communities in Collier County with the notable exceptions of Immokalee, Marco Island, Ave Maria, Everglades City and a few others, and thus Naples' USPS City population is approximately 333,083.
The Tamiami Trail is the southernmost 284 miles (457 km) of U.S. Highway 41 (US 41) from State Road 60 (SR 60) in Tampa to US 1 in Miami. A portion of the road also has the hidden designation of State Road 90 (SR 90).
Picayune Strand State Forest is one of 37 state forests in Florida managed by the Florida Forest Service. The 78,000-acre forest consists primarily of cypress swamps, wet pine flatwoods and wet prairies. It also features a grid of closed roads over part of it, left over from its previous land development schemes.
Big Cypress National Preserve is a United States National Preserve located in South Florida, about 45 miles west of Miami on the Atlantic coastal plain. The 720,000-acre (2,900 km2) Big Cypress, along with Big Thicket National Preserve in Texas, became the first national preserves in the United States National Park System when they were established on October 11, 1974. In 2008, Florida film producer Elam Stoltzfus featured the preserve in a PBS documentary.
State Road 29 is a state highway that runs north–south through Southwest Florida. A rural road, it runs mostly through uninhabited farmland in its northern half, and along wetlands in its southern half.
State Road 84 is a highway in the U.S. state of Florida originally extending from the Tamiami Trail in Naples to Federal Highway in Fort Lauderdale. The road now consists of two noncontiguous pieces––in Collier County as Davis Boulevard and in Broward County as Marina Mile Boulevard and highway frontage roads.
State Road 951 (SR 951), locally known as Collier Boulevard, is a 7-mile-long (11 km) north–south divided highway that extends from the south end of the Judge S.S. Jolley Bridge in Marco Island to the Tamiami Trail near Naples Manor, along with a short 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) piece between SR 84 and Interstate 75 (I-75). The highway once extended over 24 miles (39 km) long, traveling between Marco Island and SR 846 near Golden Gate. Portions of the former state highway are now part of County Road 951 (CR 951).
Collier–Seminole State Park is a Florida State Park located on US 41, 17 miles (27 km) south of Naples, Florida. The park is the home of a National Historic Mechanical Engineering Landmark, the Bay City Walking Dredge used to build the Tamiami Trail through the Everglades. The park includes of 6,430 acres (26 km2) of mangrove swamp, cypress swamps, salt marshes, mangrove river estuaries, and pine flatwoods. Among the wildlife of the park are American alligators, raccoons, ospreys, and American white ibis. brown pelicans, wood storks, bald eagles, red-cockaded woodpeckers, American crocodiles, Florida black bears and Big Cypress fox squirrels also inhabit the park.
Fakahatchee Strand State Preserve is a Florida State Park just west of Copeland, Florida. It is located in the Fakahatchee Strand, a thread of forested strand (swamp) in Big Cypress, a section of the Florida Everglades off SR 29.
The Florida Trail is one of eleven National Scenic Trails in the United States. It currently runs 1,500 miles (2,400 km), from Big Cypress National Preserve to Fort Pickens at Gulf Islands National Seashore, Pensacola Beach. Also known as the Florida National Scenic Trail, the Florida Trail provides permanent non-motorized recreation opportunity for hiking and other compatible activities and is within an hour of most Floridians. The Florida National Scenic Trail is designated as a National Scenic Trail by the National Trails System Act of 1968.
The Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge is part of the United States National Wildlife Refuge System, located in southwestern Florida, twenty miles east of Naples, in the upper segment of the Fakahatchee Strand of the Big Cypress Swamp. It is north of I-75 and west of SR 29.
The Seaboard–All Florida Railway was a subsidiary of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad that oversaw two major extensions of the system in the early 1920s to southern Florida on each coast during the land boom. One line extended the Seaboard's tracks on the east coast from West Palm Beach down to Fort Lauderdale and Miami, while the other extension on the west coast extended the tracks from Fort Ogden south to Fort Myers and Naples, with branches from Fort Myers to LaBelle and Punta Rassa. These two extensions were heavily championed by Seaboard president S. Davies Warfield, and were constructed by Foley Brothers railroad contractors. Both extensions also allowed the Seaboard to better compete with the Florida East Coast Railway and the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad, who already served the lower east and west coasts of Florida respectively.
Winding Cypress is a census-designated place (CDP) in western Collier County, Florida, United States. It is 9 miles (14 km) southeast of Naples and is bordered to the southwest by U.S. Route 41 and to the north by the community of Verona Walk.
The Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's Lakeland—Fort Myers Line was one of the railroad company's secondary main lines in Central and Southwest Florida. It was built incrementally in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Parts of the line are still active today.