Resources
Resources for exploring the area
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Exploring Keystone Heights
Developed as a winter resort, Keystone Heights is home to many lakes formed in sinkholes. Its centerpiece is Lake Geneva, home to Keystone Beach since 1915.
The lakeside casino and sandy swimming beach framed by oaks attracted prospective buyers from northern states to nearby lots. The town began to grow soon after World War I.
During the Great Depression, the state of Florida accepted Federal assistance from the Works Progress Administration set up by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
A crew of young men camped on rolling hills north of town donated by local resident Martin J. “Mike” Roess to learn timbering, masonry, and carpentry skills.
With paid on-the-job training, Civilian Conservation Corps Company 2444 built the infrastructure of what would become Gold Head Branch State Park.
While that effort was going on, the state of Florida acquired property around Kingsley Lake to move their Florida National Guard training center from Jacksonville.
When entry into another war in Europe was imminent, the Federal government took over the newly christened Camp Blanding and expanded it greatly through eminent domain.
Camp Blanding swelled with Army personnel as infantry units were trained. More than three quarters of a million soldiers passed through the camp during World War II.
A German prisoner of war camp over 4,000 residents by war’s end. The personnel required to run military operations made Camp Blanding the fourth largest city in Florida during the war.
While the Army turned the land back over to the state by the 1950s, the size of the base didn’t shrink, so Keystone Heights is bounded to the north by Camp Blanding.
In 1957, the state of Florida accepted a parcel of land along Magnolia Lake within the range to build Magnolia Lake State Park.
During the post-World War II era of “Jim Crow” laws, it was a segregated Florida State Park for Black residents, a counterpart to Gold Head Branch State Park, where they weren’t allowed.
Once segregation ended in the early 1970s, the park remained a local swimming hole until the state ceded the property back to Camp Blanding.
In the late 1960s, the Florida Trail Association built a segment of their newly conceived statewide hiking trail across Gold Head Branch State Park.
Now a National Scenic Trail, the Florida Trail continues to cross Keystone Heights to this day. Look for orange blazes on back roads and at trailheads in the area.
A newer edition to local trails, the Palatka-Lake Butler Trail came about when the railroad grade from Palatka to Lake Butler was acquired by the state.
Paved between Palatka and Hampton, this long-distance bike path largely parallels SR 100 through town then veers northwest to parallel CR 18 to Hampton.