280: The Park That Almost Never Was. Biscayne National Park.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.8 • 4.6K Ratings

🗓️ 10 February 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The area that is now Biscayne National Park was once considered a wasteland and worthless - but the Jones family, newly freed from slavery, saw the value it had. They purchased three islands there and created both a home and a lucrative business. When business tycoons finally realized the locations monetary worth, they fought hard to gain control of the land to develop high rises and oil refineries. Sir Lancelot Jones wasn’t willing to give up his land, and today remains a large part of why Biscayne National Park exists.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Close your eyes and envision your favorite place in the world. Are you seeing the most beautiful
0:08.2	national park you've ever visited? Perhaps you're envisioning your family's lakehouse where
0:14.4	countless memories have been made, or a special bench sitting above the coast that makes you feel
0:20.7	like you're sitting on the edge of the world.
0:24.0	Maybe it's simply just your house, where you feel safe and comfortable.
0:30.1	Now imagine a corporation arriving, ready to buy the sacred place of yours, for sums of money that you can hardly comprehend.
0:40.0	It's difficult to imagine saying no to money that would change your entire life.
0:45.6	However, then you learn that with that money, they will destroy the land that you love so much.
0:53.0	Pollute it, decimate the buildings that stand on it,
0:56.9	and drive out every living creature that calls it home.
1:01.5	Would that money still be worth it?
1:04.4	Would that offer still be too good to pass up?
1:08.4	This is a predicament that the area of Florida's Biscay National Park found itself
1:14.3	in long before it was a preserved landscape. Conservationists, locals, and one family with a generation
1:22.3	of history of loving those coastal islands decided that land was worth far more than money could buy,
1:29.8	and they were willing to fight for it.
1:34.6	Welcome to National Park After Dark.
1:38.2	Music Well, hello, everyone, and welcome back to National Park After Dark. I am Danielle. And I'm
2:03.3	Cassie. Happy Monday. Happy new episode of the week. We're so happy that you're all joining us.
2:08.8	If it is your first time, joining us, just a little rundown each week. Danielle and I pick a story
2:14.8	to tell, and one of us will tell the story to the other and this week
2:18.4	it's my turn. Yeah. And they are all by and large located within or adjacent to a national park or
	...

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