Bulow Sugar Plantation Ruins
Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park contains the ruins of an ante-bellum plantation and its sugar mill, built of coquina, a fossiliferous sedimentary rock composed of shells. It was the largest plantation in East Florida, and was operated with the forced labor of enslaved Africans and African Americans.
The plantation was developed beginning in 1821 by Major Charles Wilhelm Bulow, who acquired 4,675 acres on a tidal creek (later Bulow Creek). He had 2,200 acres cleared by the labor of his enslaved workforce for the cultivation of commodity crops: indigo, cotton, rice, and sugarcane. At his death in 1823, his seventeen-year-old son, John Joachim Bulow inherited the property and managed it. At Christmas 1831 into January 1832, Bulow hosted the artist and naturalist John James Audubon, who explored the area in his continuing study of American birds. About that time, Bulow had a sugar mill constructed on his property. The plantation was destroyed in the Seminole War of 1836.
The property and ruins were acquired by the State of Florida in 1945 and dedicated as a State Historic Park in 1957. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on 29 September 1970.
All that is left today of this plantation are the coquina ruins of the sugar mill, several wells, a spring house and the crumbling foundation of the mansion. The cleared fields have been reclaimed by the forest, and the area looks much as it did when it belonged to the Seminoles.
Where it is:
Located three miles west of Flagler Beach off County Road 2001 (Ols King’s Road), between State Road 100 and Old Dixie Highway.
In the early 1800’s this road was known as the “Old Beach Road” It went from “Old Kings Road” to the Atlantic Ocean, crossing Bulow Creek and the Intracoastal Waterway. This was also the original entrance road to Bulow’s Plantation. Today it looks very similar as it did when Bulow’s Plantation was in Operation.
Maps:
Interactive Google Map
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Cost:
Admission
- $4 per vehicle. Please use the honor box to pay fees. Correct change is required. Limit eight people per vehicle.
- $2 pedestrians, bicyclists, extra passengers, passengers in vehicle with holder of Annual Individual Entrance Pass
Links:
GPS:
29°26’1.26″ N 81°8’23.73″ W
Hours:
Amenities include a 6.8 mile hiking trail, a boat ramp, and a screened picnic pavilion. Bulow Creek is recognized as a State Canoe Trail. The park’s interpretive center features original artifacts and exhibits about the Bulow Plantation.
Near By:
Bulow Creek State Park
The highlight of Bulow Creek is one of the largest remaining stands of southern live oak forest along Florida’s east coast. The reigning tree is the Fairchild Oak, one of the largest live oak trees in the South. For more than 400 years it has been a silent witness to human activities along Bulow Creek, including the destruction of the neighboring Bulow Plantation during the Second Seminole War in 1836.
Bulow Sugar Plantation Ruins Photo Gallery
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More Photographic Destinations in Florida
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