Long before Everglades National Park appeared on any map, a hammock of towering royal palms at the southern end of the Florida peninsula became the focus of a determined conservation campaign. It was led not by government officials but by members of Florida’s women’s clubs, organizing at a time when most of them could not yet vote. Their work produced Royal Palm State Park, dedicated in 1916, and gave the later national park a starting point.
The hammock was known as Paradise Key. According to the National Park Service, the area was surveyed by federal surveyor Jack Jackson in 1847, and scientists studying the region in the late nineteenth century recognized its botanical significance. A history published by the University of Florida’s digital newspaper project describes the key as home to nearly a thousand royal palms, some rising 100 feet or more.
Its future was uncertain. Accounts from the National Park Service and the Coral Gables Woman’s Club connect the push for protection to Henry Flagler’s railroad development in South Florida. The University of Florida account credits Mary Barr Munroe, a member of the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs, with bringing Paradise Key to the federation’s attention and proposing its protection at the 1905 convention.
The campaign’s best-known leader was May Mann Jennings. She had been Florida’s first lady from 1901 to 1905, during her husband William Sherman Jennings’s term as governor, and she was active in causes including women’s suffrage, child welfare and conservation, according to the State Archives of Florida. The Florida Memory exhibit on Jennings and the Florida Women’s Hall of Fame both place her presidency of the Florida Federation of Women’s Clubs from 1914 to 1917. The National Park Service identifies her as chair of the federation’s preservation committee.
Her approach combined political connections with organized members. The University of Florida history says Jennings used her ties in Tallahassee and her network of politically engaged women to press the state to provide the land and let the federation maintain it. The State Archives notes that she personally lobbied the trustees of Florida’s Internal Improvement Fund to grant property to the federation.
The campaign succeeded in stages:
Royal Palm is sometimes called Florida’s first state park. That label needs context: the land was granted to and cared for by the women’s federation, an arrangement quite different from how Florida’s state parks are run today, and the federation’s own description focuses on the park’s creation by legislative act.
Creating the park was only the beginning. The women’s federation took on its care. The National Park Service records that Royal Palm Lodge was built in 1919 to house caretaker Charles A. Mosier and to accommodate visiting scientists and park visitors. The University of Florida history notes fundraising efforts such as a “mile of dimes,” and says the 1921 legislature granted the federation $2,500 a year for the park.
A 1930 letter from Jennings to federation members, held by the State Archives, shows how demanding that stewardship could be. It mentions storm and fire damage, a $10,000 rehabilitation appropriation from the 1927 legislature, and an annual state appropriation cut in half during the Depression. The letter also frames Royal Palm as a nucleus for a larger national park. The Florida Women’s Hall of Fame credits Jennings with directing the park from 1915 to 1936.
That national park vision was eventually realized. The National Park Service acquired Royal Palm State Park in 1947, the year Everglades National Park was established, and the old lodge served for a time as park headquarters and visitor center. Florida Memory notes that Jennings also worked alongside Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Ruth Bryan Owen and others to advance the national park effort.
Royal Palm’s story is a useful reminder that conservation history is not only about famous founders. It also depended on club meetings, lobbying, fundraising and years of routine maintenance by people whose names are less familiar. In 2016, the federation marked the park’s centennial with a rededication, a sign of how much that history still matters to the organization that fought for it.
Today, Royal Palm is part of Everglades National Park and is managed by the National Park Service. Miami Airboat is a separate business, and its tours take place in the Everglades and Francis S. Taylor Wildlife Management Area, a different part of South Florida’s wider Everglades landscape.
Learning the history adds another dimension to the landscape. If you would like to see a different part of the Everglades, you can explore Miami Airboat’s tour options in the wildlife management area.
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