Chekika Park

Call it Chekika Park, Mineral Springs or even Grossman Hammock. It has gone by all three names.

New historical information thanks to Mark Myers, the grandson of Mark Grossman. Added 10/30/2007:

Hi,

I saw your webpage with information on Lake Chekika, and I thought I would give you a little more information on the history of the site. I am the grandson of Mark Grossman, the man after whom Grossman Hammock was named.

My grandfather, Mark Grossman, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1901. His father, Samuel Grossman owned a very successful paper box company, that made the little paper boxes that now are used to hold the rice when you get takeout Chinese. He was so successful, he invested his money in land speculation in South Florida, which was in vogue in the early 1920s. This land speculation led to a real estate bubble, which burst about 1925, and was further hurt by two hurricanes, in 1926 and 1928. Then came the Wall Street Crash of 1929, and Samuel lost everything, and committed suicide. My grandfather had already dropped out of law school to try to help save the failing paper box company, but it was not to be. The family's mansion in Cleveland was sold off and became an orphanage. The only thing that was left was the land in Florida, which, for a while was so low in value it wasn't worth selling. My grandad did sell off bits here and there to pay back taxes, then in the 1930s, took advantage of a Federal relief program to get much of the back taxes on that property forgiven.

My grandfather spent much of the 1930s as a contractor in Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands, building post offices, movie theaters, etc under the WPA. Then he spent WWII making PT boats, often traveling to British Honduras (now Belize) to buy mahogany.

It wasn't until the late 1940s that Mark Grossman was able to devote any real time to the land known then as Grossman Hammock. It was therefore in the 1940s, not the 1920s (as your website asserts) that my grandfather and his partner Mack MacCord started wildcatting for oil (not an oil company as your website asserts) on the land. Most of the wells they drilled produced low yields of sour crude, but in the course of their drilling they hit the sulfur spring, and my grandad decided to develop the land into a private park where people could come and picnic, camp, etc., and built the lake (which I hear was later cemented in to be a swimming pool). He called the park Grossman Hammock Mineral Springs. It became his major source of income, providing him, my grandmother, and my mother a comfortable lifestyle in Coral Gables. He was out at the park working much of the time, but my mother and grandmother were able to spend a lot of time out there with him enjoying the natural surroundings.

The area around the hammock, much of it everglades, was prone to frequent flooding, and so my grandfather lobbied hard for flood control in the area during the 1950s, testifying before US Congress on more than one occasion. This pitted him against Marjory Stoneman Douglas, who had published "Everglades, River of Grass" in the late 1940s.

The park was not only beautiful, but historically significant as well. From the NPS website: "Its name is derived from a famous Seminole Indian, Chief Chekika. During the Seminole Indian wars chief Chekika used a tree island similar to the one at Chekika as a staging point for the raid on Indian Key in 1842 that killed Dr. Henry Perrine. Troops from Ft. Dallas in Miami, led by Col. Harney, later stormed the hammock and killed Chief Chekika. His body was hanged from a tree to warn other Indians. The actual tree island where Chekika was caught and hanged is about 10 miles north of present day Chekika in Everglades National Park."

My grandfather's brother-in-law, Marvin Brooks, was a civil engineer and an amateur archaeologist, and did some excavating out there in the 1950s, finding some interesting artifacts, many of which were donated to local museums.

My grandad sold the park to the state in 1970, where it became Chekika State Recreation Area. The proceeds enabled him to retire in comfort. He died in Houston, Texas, in 1998.

Just a little more detailed information on Chekika.

Mark Myers

Here are some pictures of what used to be a fun park with a nice lake. Now it's a grassy park with natural trails and unused campgrounds.

"I found the following relevant information from the Everglades National Park webpage.......

Chekika Chekika re-opened for day-use activities on Saturday, December 16, 2000. The campground remains closed, pending repairs of damage caused by Hurricane Irene in October 1999.

Here's the history of this park, as explained to me. Some time in the 1920's, a oil company tried to find oil in South West Dade. They saw oil oozing to the surface in this area, so it was logical that there would be oil underground. Instead of finding oil, they found water. Lots of it. Too much. By the time they drilled down some 14,000 feet (?) they hit a pocket of water with a lot of sulfur. When they were done, they had a geyser that shot 30' in the air. I think it was know as Grossman Hammock at this time. It became a park, maybe unofficially.

When I was a kid, in the late 1960's to early 1970's, this was a cool park to go to. The water was cool and clean, but smelled terrible, like rotting eggs. Everyone thought this was very healthy. The spring at this point was like a big coral rock wedding cake that had water cascading down the sides into the large lake. There was a sandy beach around the spring, and an Australian pine stand on the east side. The large lake then drained into a swampy lake to the south. Between then and the 1980s, the park grew. A large parking lot was added, a camp ground and a lot of park buildings. A more elaborate fountain was built around the spring.

Sometime in the 1980's it was decided that all this surfer water from underground shouldn't be allowed to get in the Biscayne Aquifer, where our drinking water comes from. So the spring was capped. Aerial photography seems to still show the lake had water in it and there was a sandy beach. Between then and now, the big lake is now a swamp, the beach is gone. The camp grounds are closed. Not much to see except for some overgrown nature trails. In fact, while we were there on a beautiful Saturday, only two other people were at the park. Unless the water source can come back, there's not much reason to go this park. The good news is that there's no charge to get in to the park.

I'm going to take a guess here.... since the lake looked viable back in 1994, and that's way after the old sulfer well was capped in the 1980's, I suspect the spring that's there today was connected to the pump buildings you can see in the photos below. Sort of pump it out of the lake, then back up to the top of the "spring." As I remember the lake when I was a kid, the sulfur well was more to the West of the big lake. South of where you can see the beach in the aerial photography. The thing you can see below may be nothing more than a fake of the original. The whole park has changed a lot. If so, where's the REAL well today? Can anyone who remembers this park confirm my memories?

There appears to be active power and phone service, so it could be used as a command post location if there's ever a disaster out there. The drinking water and water treatment system seem to be off. It might be a good field day location. But not during the bug season.

Portable toilets since the water and sewer treatment plant seems to be shut down.

The small images below are missing... click on the small box to see the full sized picture.

The shut down sewage treatment system. This may be why the camp grounds are still closed.