Intoxicants and firearms are prohibited. Hours of Operation Florida state parks are open from 8 a.m. until sundown 365 days a year. Jonathan Dickinson State Park is located 12 miles south of Stuart on U.S.1. Teeming with wildlife, the park offers camping, canoeing, hiking and bicycling, picnicking, fresh and saltwater fishing and guided tours of the Loxahatchee River. The Loxahatchee River, named a National Wild and Scenic River in 1985, winds its way through the park, passing under a canopy of centuries-old cypress trees.
Legends are nothing new to the east coast of Florida.
In 1696, a Quaker merchant named Jonathan Dickinson shipwrecked off the coast in the area of Hobe Sound. Dickinson, his family and other survivors, made an arduous journey along the coast to St. Augustine. His journal, describing encounters with Native Americans and Spanish settlers, gives valuable information about life in early Florida. The 44-passenger Loxahatchee Queen II takes visitors up the Loxahatchee River to the pioneer homesite of Trapper Nelson. Nelson came to the area in the 1930s and lived off the land by trapping and selling furs.