Vast, mysterious, and inaccessible for centuries, the Everglades is famous worldwide. Much of this unique landscape is protected within Everglades National Park, as are exotically named places such as Flamingo, Ten Thousand Islands, Florida Bay, Anhinga Trail, Shark Valley, and Pahayokee. Dedicated in 1947, the park receives nearly a million visitors in most years who come to experience the Everglades and its alligators, crocodiles, Florida panthers, anhingas, roseate spoonbills, and egrets. It was egrets--or rather, their courtship plumes decorating ladies' hats--that jump-started the movement to save the wetlands as a park. The Everglades was home to archaic people for thousands of years and also holds the stories of the indigenous Tequesta, Spanish and British colonialists, Mikasuki-speaking Native Americans (and the soldiers who sought to expel them), pioneer settlers, activists who created the park, residents of south Florida, and generations of visitors who have experienced the tropical wilderness of Everglades National Park.
