Content
Parks Task Force Committee
Minutes of May 15, 2004 Meeting
I. Date, Time, Place, Attendees
A. Date, Time, Place of Meeting
Date of Meeting: May 15, 2004
Place: Camp Milton Historical Preserve and Jacksonville-Baldwin Rails-to-Trails
Time: 10:30AM
B. Attendees
1. Rufus Pennington
2. Lyssa Kohler
3. Mark Middlebrook
4. Coen Purvis
5. Derek Rowan
6. Lanny Russell
7. Susan Grandin
8. Steve Davis
II. The Meeting
A. Mark Middlebrook, Lyssa Kohler and Susan Grandin gave a tour of Camp Milton Historical Preserve and discussed Preservation Project Jacksonville buffer properties along the trail that are part of a Florida Communities Trust project. Camp Milton was the site of several encounters between the Confederate and Union soldiers during the Civil War. It was also the largest encampment of Confederate forces in Florida, with 8,000 troops having assembled near its log and earth barricades. This important military outpost on the vital corridor between Jacksonville and the panhandle was named for Florida's Civil War governor, John Milton (1807-1865).
The Jacksonville-Baldwin Rail Trail is a unique linear park that features adaptive reuse of an abandoned rail line. Once part of the CSX railway line, today the greenway is a 14.5-mile-long multi-use asphalt trail for walking, jogging, bicycling, and in-line skating, with plans for an adjacent unpaved trail for horseback riding underway. Along the greenway, visitors can see a diversity of natural habitats, including pine flatwoods, wetlands, and hardwood uplands. These areas attract a variety of wildlife such as songbirds, hawks, wild turkey, and white-tailed deer. The dense canopy that covers most of the trail provides shade on a sunny day and, in certain locations, even gives the illusion of traveling in a tunnel.