The Key West citizen. [volume] (Key West, Fla.) 1879-current, 1932-12-19
EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK


Rotary Club, the subject of E. A. Strunk's
talk was the Everglades National ark IN
which he urged all to put forth heir efforts
to have the project completed, and the
club voted that the members should write
Florida's senators and congressman re-
questing them to continue their efforts in
support of this measure for national park
in Florida
Congressman Owen has worked in
defatigably for the passage of this bill,
which has been favorably reported to the
house by the committee on public lands,
and already the senate has passed COM
panion bill, sponsored by Senator Fletcher,
so that now only the action of the house
is necessary to create the park
1t is the hope of all Floridians that
the next congress will see to it that the
Everglades National Park will become a
reality
Most of the section is in Monroe county
and parts Of it in Dade and Collier coun-
ties. There are but two highways in
tersecting this vast, primitive area the
Tamiami Trail in the extreme northern
portion and the road to Key West in the
extreme eastern Most everything else is
as Nature made it. This primitive spot
should be preserved for the 125,000,000
people who are as yet unaware of its I'M
told natural treasures.
Ales Hrdlicka, curator of the division
of Physical Anthropology at the National
Museum in Washington, d. c., is very en-
thusiastic concerning the establishment of
the Everglades National Park, and be-
lieves that no national park will be more
justified than the Florida park now under
consideration.
The region uncompassed within the
proposed Everglades National Park is we'll
known to Professor Hrdlicka having been
explored by him scientifically in 1918. In
connection with his work, that of Anthro-
pology, he has visited many parts of the
world, and is particularly directly ac-
quainted with most of the United States
from the Gulf to Alaska, so whatever this
eminent scientist has to say is authoritative
In recent letter to Ernest F. Coe
chairman of the executive council of the
Everglades National Park Association, Pro-
lessor Hrdlicka, referring to the proposed
salvaging of this bit of the tropical world
enthuses as follows:
"In all my travels / have never
seen region more charming and in
teresting from the points of view of
the naturalist, the fisherman, the
archaeologist and others, and at the
same time less fit for ordinary habita-
ton than the southwestern part of
Florida, known justly as the 10000
Island Region. 1t is natural jewel
which should be preserved for the
American people as whole forever.
II will form, as largely it is aires dy,
an ideal sanctuary of the colorful
water fowl and other birds of the Gulf.
1t is a bit of paradise for the fisher
man; the region teens with mounds
and other remains of ancient man,
which should be preserved for poster
ity; the entire coast region of this part
of Florida is part of the continent in
constant highly instructive process of
formation, the creeks, bayous, sounds
and outside shadows are biological
laboratories of inestimable value: and
the whole region is so pristine and wild
that it is hard to realize that it may
be so near to civilization
The United States has national parks
in various sections of its domain, but none
in the south, and the section contemplated
for che Everglades National Park is ideal
for this purpose is unlike anything in the
rest of this country and real part of the
tropical world