The National Park Service (NPS) is in the process of developing a planning document to guide access and interpretation of the newly acquired Spanish American War Battery within Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve (TIMU). The Preserve protects some of the last unspoiled Atlantic coastal wetlands, where there are also several cultural sites of national and state significance. One such historical resource is the Spanish American War Battery, erected in April 1898 to protect the mouth of the St. Johns River against invasion by the Spanish Fleet. The battery demonstrates the importance of St. Johns Bluff as a military coastal defense position, where earlier the Confederate Army, and before that the Spanish and the English, had maintained forces and/or batteries. The NPS identified acquisition of the battery for protection and interpretation to the public as a top priority in the Preserve’s 1990 General Management Plan (GMP).
In support of the process of developing planning documents to guide future use of the property, you are invited to attend a virtual civic engagement meeting to learn more and to provide your comments and questions about the initial groundwork being developed to inform and guide future planning decisions for the Spanish-American War Battery and its associated landscape.
Given the current circumstances surrounding the coronavirus pandemic,Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve will host the virtual civic engagement meeting on November 12, 2020, from 6:00 – 7:30 PM Eastern via Microsoft Teams at
The NPS and a team of historic preservation consultants will provide a presentation of work conducted to date. A question and answer session will follow the presentation.
Contact Information
Steven Kidd, Chief of Science and Resource Management, Timucuan Ecological and Historic Preserve, 904-801-9761.