Wakulla River

Last updated
Wakulla River
WakullaRiver.jpg
Wakulla River between the Upper and Lower Bridges.
Stmarksrivermap.png
St. Marks River watershed
Location
Country United States
State Florida
County Wakulla
District NWFWMD
Physical characteristics
Source Wakulla Springs
 - location Wakulla Springs State Park
 - coordinates 30°14′01″N84°18′19″W / 30.23361°N 84.30528°W / 30.23361; -84.30528
Mouth St. Marks River
 - location
St. Marks, Florida
 - coordinates
30°8′58″N84°12′40″W / 30.14944°N 84.21111°W / 30.14944; -84.21111 Coordinates: 30°8′58″N84°12′40″W / 30.14944°N 84.21111°W / 30.14944; -84.21111
Length11 mi (18 km)

The Wakulla River is an 11-mile-long (18 km) [1] river in Wakulla County, Florida. It carries the outflow from Wakulla Springs, site of the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park, to the St. Marks River 3 miles (5 km) north of the Gulf of Mexico. Its drainage basin extends northwest into Leon County, including Munson Slough, and may extend as far north as the Georgia border. [2]

Wakulla County, Florida County in Florida, United States

Wakulla County is a county located in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 30,776. Its county seat is Crawfordville.

Wakulla Springs A spring and cave in the Floridan Aquifer under the Woodville Karst Plain of north Florida

Wakulla Springs is located 14 miles (23 km) south of Tallahassee, Florida and 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Crawfordville in Wakulla County, Florida at the crossroads of State Road 61 and State Road 267. It is protected in the Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park.

Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park

Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park is a Florida State Park in Wakulla County, Florida, United States. This 6,000 acre (24 km2) wildlife sanctuary, located south of Tallahassee, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and designated a National Natural Landmark. It has three nature trail systems which lead the visitor through pine forests, bald cypress wetlands and hardwood hammock. Hikers, bicyclists and horse riders are welcome. The wildlife found in the forest includes white-tailed deer, wild turkey, and many other bird species, while American alligators, bass, gar, various snakes, and West Indian manatee populate the springs, swamps, and river.

Contents

The river, due to its clear, clean water, was once used to film underwater scenes during north Florida's cinema boom. Movies filmed in Wakulla Springs and river include several Tarzan movies, starring Johnny Weissmuller, and Creature from the Black Lagoon . [3]

Florida State of the United States of America

Florida is the southernmost contiguous state in the United States. The state is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, and to the south by the Straits of Florida. Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U.S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and the largest city by area in the contiguous United States. The Miami metropolitan area is Florida's most populous urban area. Tallahassee is the state's capital.

Tarzan fictional character from Edgar Rice Burroughss Tarzan of the Apes

Tarzan is a fictional character, an archetypal feral child raised in the African jungle by the Mangani great apes; he later experiences civilization only to reject it and return to the wild as a heroic adventurer. Created by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan first appeared in the novel Tarzan of the Apes, and subsequently in 25 sequels, several authorized books by other authors, and innumerable works in other media, both authorized and unauthorized. The film version of Tarzan as the noble savage, as acted by Johnny Weissmuller, does not reflect the original character in the novels, who is gracious and highly sophisticated.

Johnny Weissmuller American swimmer and actor

Johnny Weissmuller was an Austro-Hungarian-born American competition swimmer and actor, best known for playing Edgar Rice Burroughs' ape man Tarzan in films of the 1930s and 1940s and for having one of the best competitive swimming records of the 20th century.

Etymology

The name Wakulla is from Guacara. Guacara is a Spanish phonetic spelling of an original Indian name, and Wakulla is a Muskhogean pronunciation of Guacara. The Spanish Gua is the equivalent of the Creek wa, and as the Creek alphabet does not exhibit an "R" sound, the second element cara would have been pronounced kala by the Creeks. The Creek voiceless "L" is always substituted for the Spanish "R". Thus the word Guacara was pronounced Wakala by the Seminoles who are Muskhogean in their origin and language. In the 17th century the Spanish also used the name "Guacara River" for what is now called the Suwannee River. Boyd et al. suggest that the common name of the two rivers is related to the fact that both are the products of solution topography, and that both are fed by springs. [4]

Spanish language Romance language

Spanish or Castilian is a Romance language that originated in the Castile region of Spain and today has hundreds of millions of native speakers in the Americas and Spain. It is a global language and the world's second-most spoken native language, after Mandarin Chinese.

Suwannee River 396km (246mi) river in Florida and Georgia, USA

The Suwannee River is a major river that runs through South Georgia southward into Florida in the southern United States. It is a wild blackwater river, about 246 miles (396 km) long. The Suwannee River is the site of the prehistoric Suwanee Straits which separated peninsular Florida from the panhandle.

Since Wakulla was probably a Timucuan word, it is unlikely that its meaning will ever be known. It may contain the word kala which signified a "spring of water" in some Indian dialects, but not in the Timucuan language. Timucuan cala meant "to cut or shave", "to freeze to death", or "fruit". [5]

Timucua Native American people

The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The various groups of Timucua spoke several dialects of the Timucua language. At the time of European contact, Timucuan speakers occupied about 19,200 square miles (50,000 km2) in the present-day states of Florida and Georgia, with an estimated population of 200,000. Milanich notes that the population density calculated from those figures, 10.4 per square mile (4.0/km2) is close to the population densities calculated by other authors for the Bahamas and for Hispaniola at the time of first European contact. The territory occupied by Timucua speakers stretched from the Altamaha River and Cumberland Island in present-day Georgia as far south as Lake George in central Florida, and from the Atlantic Ocean west to the Aucilla River in the Florida Panhandle, though it reached the Gulf of Mexico at no more than a couple of points.

The Wakulla River Canoe Trail runs for approximately 4 miles (6.4 km), between the Upper and Lower Bridges. Access to the river north of the Upper Bridge is blocked by a chain-link fence erected by Ed Ball in the 1930s; challenged in court, its legality was upheld when the river above it was found by a court to be non-navigable. [2]

Edward Ball (businessman) American businessperson

Edward Gresham Ball was an American businessperson. He was a powerful figure in business and politics in Florida for decades, despite the fact that he never held public office and did not own the assets he controlled. He worked for and with his brother-in-law, Alfred I. du Pont for nine years before running the Alfred I. duPont Testamentary Trust's businesses by himself for another 46 years. He founded and led the St. Joe Paper Company to become a major player in several industries in Florida.

List of crossings

CrossingCarriesImageLocationCoordinates
Headwaters 30°14′01″N84°18′19″W / 30.23361°N 84.30528°W / 30.23361; -84.30528
Upper Bridge Wakulla County Road 365 FL.svg CR 365
Shadeville Highway
Wakulla Station 30°12′49″N84°15′41″W / 30.21361°N 84.26139°W / 30.21361; -84.26139
Lower Bridge US 98.svg US 98
Coastal Highway
St. Marks 30°10′32″N84°14′43″W / 30.17556°N 84.24528°W / 30.17556; -84.24528
Mouth 30°08′58″N84°12′40″W / 30.14944°N 84.21111°W / 30.14944; -84.21111

Notes

  1. U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline data. The National Map, accessed April 18, 2011
  2. 1 2 Boning, Charles R. 2007. Florida's Rivers. Sarasota, Florida: Pineapple Press, Inc. ISBN   978-1-56164-400-1
  3. Wakulla County: Wakulla Springs Retrieved June 28, 2007
  4. Milanich, pp. 12-13. Guacara is possibly a Spanish spelling of Timucuan bacara, "to ripen".
    Wenhold, p. 8.
    Boyd:101
    Granberry:118, 131
  5. Simpson, J. Clarence (1956). Mark F. Boyd, ed. Florida Place-Names of Indian Derivation. Tallahassee, Florida: Florida Geological Survey.
    Granberry:121

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References

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