Palatka, Did you know?

Palatka, Florida

 

Did You Know!!!!

**Palatka sits on a bend in the St. Johns River, Northeast Florida.  About  50 miles south of  Jacksonville. Potato, cabbage, fern and blueberry farms surround the town of 10,000, where the main industry is the Georgia-Pacific paper mill.

**During the 1850s, Palatka gained a reputation as a haven for invalids escaping northern winters.  Amusements included "sailing, fishing, rowing, walking, riding in buggy and on horseback, whist, enchre, backgammon and hunting."

 

**Has a humid subtropical climate, with mild weather during winters and hot weather during summers. High temperatures average 64 to 91 °F.  It is common for daily thunderstorms to erupt during a standard summer afternoon.  Rainfall averages around 50 inches a year.

**Festivals

-------Ravine Gardens State Park – home of the Florida Azalea Festival, in March.

-------Palatka has the Blue Crab Festival which kicks off every year during Memorial Day Weekend. 

**Rice Creek Conservation Area:  rice plantation during the 18th century. 
1780s, British loyalists Thomas Forbes and William Panton fled from the American Revolution in Georgia to Florida, then a British colony. Applying for a land grant, they received acreage west of modern-day Palatka. Using servants to ditch dikes and build drainage canals, they established fields of rice and indigo (a native plant from which dyes are extracted) and tapped pine trees for naval stores such as turpentine. Eventually, the area was abandoned and returned to forest.  The site has a variety of natural communities, including floodplain swamp, flatwoods, dome swamp, floodplain forest and upland mixed forest. 

Cypress trees grow to incredible sizes. Just off the trail is the 

7th largest cypress in Florida.

 Palatka is known as a City of Murals

"Battle of Horse Landing"

"Mug Race"  (mom loves the sailboats)

Angel's Diner

Florida's Oldest Diner, in Palatka
"Jeremy have you eaten here?"