KEYSTONE HEIGHTS – Mike Roess Gold Head Branch State Park will have a cake-cutting ceremony on Sunday, April 21, at 1 p.m. at the Recreation Hall to commemorate its 85th birthday as a state park.

The event on State Road is free from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., with a park entry fee of $5 per vehicle.

The park will have an activity that will encourage visitors to explore several places throughout the park, including the trails, picnic area, a historic cabin and more.

In 1935, 25 craftsmen and skilled laborers from Company 2444 gathered at Gold Head Branch State Park. Over four years, they led hundreds of the younger Civilian Conservation Corps youth and taught them their trades.

Together, they established CCC Camp SP-5. Some stonemasons used limestone rocks to create so many of the distinctive features in the structures at the park. They built roads and planted trees. They diverted one of the Gold Head Branch branches to Little Lake Johnson.

Gold Head‘s special features are a system of springs in a steep side ravine (Gold Head Branch) and sinkhole lakes in a karst landscape on the central Florida ridge. Scientists have found carbon-dated pollen in the sediment of the lakes. They found that Sheeler Lake is one of the oldest sinkhole lakes in the park at an estimated 23,900 years. Another sinkhole lake, Kingsley Lake – located at Camp Blanding – is thought by some to be one million years old. The park was not untouched by man; there are the remains of a gristmill and dam, a historic church and a farmhouse dating back to the turn of the 20th Century.

The park was dedicated on April 15, 1939. At first, the park was simply known as “Gold Head Branch,” until 1966 when the Florida Board of Parks and Historic Monuments changed the name to honor the late Mike Roess, who died in 1952. It is considered one of the first state parks in Florida’s history.