Читать книгу Suwannee River Guidebook - Kevin M. McCarthy - Страница 11

by land from the Okefenokee Refuge to Big Shoals

No highways on either side of the river follow its winding path completely, but highways/dirt roads parallel it for much of its way and allow one to reach fish camps, boat landings, and trailer parks. Keep in mind that the northern part of the river is the most isolated as it winds from Georgia’s Charlton County through the counties of Ware, Clinch, and Echols into Florida, forming the border between Hamilton and Columbia counties. Georgia’s Highway 177 is a paved road that parallels the river from Stephen C. Foster State Park in the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to Edith, Georgia, just southeast of Fargo. At that point it joins U.S. 441/Ga. 89 south.

Fargo, in Clinch County, Georgia, is a small town, having only 380 residents in the 2000 census. Its location near the Okefenokee Swamp makes it the western gateway to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge and a neighbor of the Stephen C. Foster State Park. Its proximity to such large tracts of forest has made it very susceptible to fires, including the spring 2007 fire, the largest in Georgia’s recorded history. The surrounding Clinch County takes its name from General Duncan Clinch, who fought in the War of 1812 and in the Seminole Indian Wars in Florida; he later served in the U.S. Congress. The name of Fargo itself originated with the local railroad line, but exactly how is unclear.

The Welcome Center at Fargo has displays about the river.

Highway 94 heads west out of Fargo. About four miles from the town a road cuts off south and parallels the Suwannee, but it is a dirt road much of the way. When that road enters Hamilton County, Florida, it becomes C.R. 135 or Woodpecker Road/N.E. 180th Boulevard. Small roads veer off that road to boat ramps on the Suwannee before ending in White Springs. Among the wildlife one can see there are deer, gopher tortoises, raccoons, squirrels, wading birds, and wild hogs. The types of forest communities include bottomland, floodplain, mixed hardwood, and swamps. Recreational activities in the area include bicycling, fishing, hiking, horseback riding, and wildlife viewing. Hunting is allowed in parts of the Cypress Creek Wildlife Management Area; for information contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission at its regional office in Lake City (386-758-0525).

On the east side of the Suwannee, when U.S. 441/Ga. 89 enters Florida, it becomes U.S. 441/FL 47. U.S. 441 is a major north-south highway that parallels the river from Georgia down to a point just east of White Springs, where the river takes a sharp turn to the west and begins a very meandering course down to Mayo, Florida. Highway 246/Corinth Road cuts off U.S. 441 and heads due west to highways 41/100/25, which run through White Springs.

The granite monument was dedicated in 1938.

A granite monument at the Florida state line notes that in 1938 the state road department named that portion of the highway in honor of Frederick Preston Cone (1871–1948), who was the state’s twenty-seventh governor (1937–1941). He was from Benton, a small town north of Lake City, on U.S. 441. The Cone Bridge, commemorated today in the naming of the Cone Bridge Road across the Suwannee at about the 185-mile mark of the river, is no longer there. All that is left today of the bridge, which the Florida Legislature had approved in 1881 and later named for the governor, are some of the pylons on either side of the river.

Drivers can enter Big Shoals Public Lands (for a fee) for access to hiking and biking trails.