The remote flatwoods and swamp spreading for miles from the lower Apalachicola to the Ochlockonee rivers, though logged, are critical to the survival in North Florida of black bear and other wildlife that need large unpopulated areas. (From 1999 CARL Report)

Project area is 214, 901 acres of which 140,141 have been acquired thus far. 

State buys swampland in Tates Hell

TALLAHASSEE -- (EnviroWorld, Thursday, May 30, 1996) -- Florida will spend $33.3 million to buy more than 40,000 acres of land in the Panhandle swamp named Tates Hell. The governor and Cabinet approved the purchase on Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel and Tampa Tribune reported. The purchase will give the state ownership of 60 percent of the 214,000-acre area named for Cebe Tate, a mythical wanderer who was lost in the impenetrable wetland, according to folklore. The Tates Hell region is in Franklin and Liberty counties, and runs south from the Apalachicola National Forest to the Gulf of Mexico creating more than 750,000 acres of U.S. and state-owned woods and wetlands.From the purchase, the state will work to restore the natural flow of surface water to the Gulf of Mexico by filling in many of ditches dug by timber companies in the past. Officials hope this will improve water quality dramatically.

In addition, the land purchase will create a 750,000-acre corridor of government-owned land where the largest of Florida's five black bear populations can grow. "Forty thousand acres of habitat for the black bear and so forth is a nice piece of land. Not many of those big ones left," Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Virginia Wetherell told the Sentinel.

The governor and Cabinet unanimously approved the purchases of three parcels totaling 40,247 under the state's
Conservation and Recreation Lands Program.

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Project: Tates Hell State Forest

Parcel: New River/TNC - Adjacent
Date Acquired: 010/08/96
Acres: 2,629.00
Acquisition Costs: $5,323,004
County: Franklin
Reason for Acquisition/Public Use Benefit: To improve overall multiple-use and ecosystem
management of the forest, and consolidate forest boundaries. Protected several miles of river
frontage, provided a recreation corridor and completed a large acquisition area which included
federal acquisitions.

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Internet Sites:

Florida Division of Forestry - Tates Hell State Forest

The Nature Conservancy - Large Addition to Tate's Hell State Forest Approved

EcoFlorida Magazine - Tate's Hell Land Acquisition Approved, Creating Large Florida Conservation Area

Visit Florida - Tate's Hell State Forest

Florida DEP - Land Management Review of Tate’s Hell State Forest