Let’s not reinvent the wheel is an idiom that I often use with my staff at the park when we are coming up with new program ideas, displays, garden features, etc. This was especially true during my first year at Castellow, when we had to quickly revitalize the site after it had been unstaffed for the two previous years. While it is important to think outside the box (I’m just full of them… full of something), more than likely someone had previously thought outside the box before us. New programs that we introduced like the Historic Redland Bike Tour and Hattie Bauer Preserve Hike (get your tickets today!) were just old programs pulled from Castellow’s long and rich history of environmental education. That history allows us to look into the past and see what worked and what didn’t work in terms of whatever subject matter we are delving into. Yay, history.
It may surprise a few, but the Interpretive Services/Naturalist Services/Miami EcoAdventures unit of Miami-Dade Parks (formally Metro-Dade) has existed for many decades providing nature-based programming to the public with the mission of telling our ever-expanding city’s environmental story. Many of our current interpretive naturalists are not entirely familiar with their predecessors, but I happen to be the son of one of them; one of the great ones, in fact. Because of this, I was given the unofficial role of the unit’s historian, continuing a legacy that was set forth by these old-timers in the late 1960s/early 1970s. Most of my early childhood memories these legends are a bit shoddy at 40 years, but I am honored to have inherited a historical record of them spanning nearly three decades through a publication called Tropical Trails.
With its first release in October of 1975, Tropical Trails was a crude, type-written, two-to-three page mimeographed newsletter, with hand-drawn clip-art that featured a simple program calendar and short articles on native flora and fauna. For just a $2.00 subscription fee, you would receive 10 newsletters a year via snail mail. The programs listed in the newsletter were being conducted out of a handful of our earliest parks, most of which are now considered Miami-Dade heritage sites. My old stomping ground, Greynolds Park, for instance, was known for an incredible bird rookery, Fruit & Spice Park for its fruit and vegetable workshops, Matheson Hammock Park for its old-growth native trees, and Bear Cut Preserve (Crandon Park) for its marine animals. Also predominantly featured was the county’s first official environmental education center, Castellow Hammock Park. Opened in September of 1974, Castellow Hammock soon became a major hub for environmental programming within the Metro-Dade Parks Department.
Through-out the 1970s, the Tropical Trails newsletter didn’t change much, but the parks department certainly did. The old newsletter provides us with a historical record showcasing the department’s evolution. For one, more and more environmental programming was being scheduled at different sites such as Oak Grove Park, Haulover Beach Park, and Bird Drive Park to name a few. Do you know where Bird Drive Park is? In a 1988 issue of Tropical Trails, an advertisement for a park dedication appears. At that dedication, Bird Drive Park would be renamed in honor of the first department director, Adrian Doug Barnes. How about Old Cutler Hammock? A quick look into some issues of Tropical Trails reveals it is now known as Bill Sadowski Park. One my favorites is how often one sees the term “sense of wonder” used through-out those early issues. Not only is The Sense of Wonder a book written by the acclaimed environmentalist, Rachel Carson, but the nature center at A.D. Barnes Park was given the same name.
In the late 70s/early 80s, the newsletter received a facelift and became Tropical Trails magazine. Replacing the hand-drawn clip-art were glossy color photos, sometimes in color, featuring scenes from our natural areas. The DIY, type-written 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets were replaced with professionally printed compact booklets, some of which featured over 35 pages of information. Tropical Trails was given a budget, it seems! It was during this time that the personalities of the writers, editors, and overall, the naturalists, started to shine through. Comics with humor akin to the Far Side made their way in, while coloring pages and craft projects opened the publication to a younger crowd. An Ask a Naturalist feature gave readers an opportunity to directly connect with Roger Hammer, a naturalist known for his seemingly infinite knowledge and sarcastic humor. The newer editions of Tropical Trails also gave an outlet to writers outside the umbrella of Miami-Dade Parks. Articles began popping up from the likes of National Parks rangers, community activists, archaeologists, local musicians (including Valerie Wisecracker) and many others connected with our environmental story. It seemed as though Tropical Trails had hit its stride.
On August 24th, 1992 at approximately 5:00am in the morning, a category 4 hurricane called Andrew made landfall in Miami. It devastated many parts of the city, most notably Homestead, Florida City, and Redland. The following summer, a hurricane edition of Tropical Trails provided updates on several of the parks that sustained significant damage during the storm. Castellow Hammock Park, which had once “boasted the greatest canopy height of any of the hardwood forests of Dade County” was right in the path of Andrew’s eye wall and was left a tangled mess of trees with the nature center damaged beyond repair. The following fall and spring issues also featured articles dedicated to Hurricane Andrew. The magazine provided a pre-internet channel for the Parks’ Natural Areas Management teams to speak directly with the community regarding their strenuous efforts to restore our green spaces. Strangely, after 1993 there is a five year gap in my collection. Did Hurricane Andrew put a hold on production, or is my collection incomplete?
The next issue I have was released in 1998. These are some of the most delightful to read as many of the newer generation of Miami-Dade naturalists had come to know the people who were providing content. The aforementioned Castellow Hammock Park manager, Roger Hammer takes you with him on a 99-mile canoe trip through the Everglades complete with pictures of his freshly-caught dinner and the libations he used to wash it down. Carol Helene, former President of the Arch Creek Trust, tells you the colorful history of Arch Creek Park from its prehistory to present. Editor-in-chief, Ernest Lynk recounts stories of past campers who made lasting impacts on his storied career. In nearly every issue the name Jim King appears at least once. The list goes on. In these issues, it’s also fascinating to see just how often history repeats itself. An article from Volume 23, No 2 entitled Rare Pine Rockland Revived at Park, details the efforts made by Natural Areas Management to restore the Pine Rockland at A.D. Barnes Park. At the time of my writing this, Barnes is being burned again.
The last issue of Tropical Trails I have in my possession is Vol 25, No 1 from the year 2000. On the cover a hiker adorned in mosquito netting walks down a dirt trail somewhere in the Everglades (probably Long Pine Key). A note from the editor tells us about a potential camper who is transfixed by the pictures on his office wall, one of which is of the famous Bat Boy from the Weekly World News tabloid. A year later in 2001, shortly after graduating high school, I would get my first job with Miami-Dade Parks as a counselor with Camp Manatee at Greynolds. The bird rookery there had long since disappeared after a domino effect of misguided choices. That same year, the Interpretive Services unit would be rebranded into Miami EcoAdventures. This would usher in a new era of young interpreters who would find guidance under the greying naturalists who came before them. Those naturalists would retire one-by-one leaving behind their legacies and the marks they made on their respective nature centers. The history of their exploits, their ideas, their programs, and the wheels they invented are left for the new generation to learn from and expand upon within the pages of Tropical Trails.
-The Folk Naturalist
Get this, kids! Clip-art used to literally be cut-out pictures glued to a page and then copied as a way to feature graphics in your publication. The more you know!
According to some hearsay, at one point in time Oak Grove was being considered to become a nature center as well. This was before Arch Creek Park opened in the north end in November of 1981. Apparently, the original recreation center building at Oak Grove was identical in design to the nature center at Castellow Hammock at the time. As previously mentioned, the nature center at Castellow was destroyed by Hurricane Andrew in August of 1992 but rebuilt by 1997 with its current design. The old recreation center at Oak Grove has since been replaced by the beautiful Father Gerard Jean-Juste Community Center.
I originally wrote this in 2020, during the height of COVID and two years after my father, Jim King, had passed away. At the time, writing about his legacy in the Interpretive Services Unit – a unit I am now a senior member of - felt strange and I failed to mention his steadfast contributions to Tropical Trails. Not only did he provide some incredibly well-written articles, especially in the early years, but he also acted as Editor-in-Chief for a good period of time. Roger, who was incredibly close with my dad, has told me that my father “started Tropical Trails” though I’m not sure that is fully accurate. Nice to hear, of course. Regardless, his name appearing in nearly every issue was a line I added upon editing this essay, mainly because it’s true.
A note about history repeating itself:
There’s a story from the 1960s about one of The Beatles’ most famous albums, St. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. We like to think The Beatles were musical geniuses and they were, by all accounts, great song writers as exhibited by their incredible body of work. St. Pepper’s, however, is at least partially a result of the band taking influence from another famous album that was released a year earlier. That album was Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys. When you listen to the two albums side by side, you can hear the obvious influence by way of tone, harmony, and craftsmanship. What’s ironic is that, going further back into history, it is revealed that Pet Sounds was largely influenced by The Beatles’ album Rubber Soul, released in 1965. None of these albums outright bite off each other. Instead, they expand upon the groundwork that was created before them.
Eric, why not start it up again? American natural history and environmental writing is one of the treasures of our national literature. It could be done entirely as a subscription online periodical, possibly a quarterly to start, with print on demand capability for anyone who wants to purchase a hard copy.
Thoughts?
- Rick Wallach