Qualla: Ocala National Forest

Ocala National Forest: Introduction

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Miosotis Jade, CC BY-SA 4.0. "In all of America there is not a more wild and hostile land." That was novelist Patrick D. Smith's verdict on the Big Scrub, the vast heart of the Ocala National Forest in north-central Florida. Established in 1908 by President Theodore Roosevelt, Ocala is the oldest national forest east of the Mississippi River and the southernmost in the continental United States. The Timucua people who lived here first gave it a name meaning "fair land" or "big hammock," and both descriptions still hold. Nestled between the Ocklawaha and St. Johns rivers, the forest sprawls across parts of Marion, Lake, and Putnam counties, sheltering over 600 natural lakes and springs, the densest population of Florida black bears in the state, and ecosystems found nowhere else on Earth.

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Image: Miosotis Jade | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocala National Forest: The Sea of Scrub

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit FartyBoi, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Big Scrub is what makes Ocala unlike any other national forest. This immense stretch of Florida scrub habitat contains the largest concentration of sand pine in the world, a landscape so dense and inhospitable that Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, who l...

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Image: FartyBoi | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocala National Forest: Twelve Thousand Years of Footprints

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit DanTD, CC BY-SA 4.0. Long before the sand pines took hold, this land lay beneath the sea. The calcium from decomposing fish bones and shells became the limestone bedrock that would eventually rise above the waves, making the area around present-day Ocala one of the first parts of the Florida peninsul...

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Image: DanTD | CC BY-SA 4.0

Ocala National Forest: Bombs and Bears

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Ianaré Sévi, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Ocala National Forest contains a startling contradiction: the Pinecastle Bombing Range, the only place on the East Coast where the U.S. Navy conducts live-impact ordnance training. F/A-18 Hornet fighters launch from Naval Air Station Jacksonville or from aircraft carriers off...

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Image: Ianaré Sévi | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ocala National Forest: Springs, Trails, and Ghost Towns

Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit No machine-readable author provided. Ianare assumed (based on copyright claims)., Public domain. Millions of visitors arrive each year, making Ocala the most-visited national forest in Florida. The crystal-clear springs at Juniper Springs and Alexander Springs draw swimmers and snorkelers year-round, while the Florida Trail winds through the forest on its way across the stat...

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Image: No machine-readable author provided. Ianare assumed (based on copyright claims). | Public domain