Waycross,Where the Ways Cross

Laura S. Walker is the only Georgia State Park named for a woman. It perches at the top of the Okefenokee Swamp near Waycross. The Okefenokee Swamp Park brings you face to face with the inhabitantants of the swamp. Okefenokee Heritage Center traces the history of the area. Southern Forest World is another unique attraction in Waycross that you won't want to miss.

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Getting around the park can be done with a bike or walking, but you would need a car to get to attractions in town. The park is very large so even there you would use a car to get from one place to another, such as to the golf cours or pool.

Laura S. Walker is the only Georgia State Park named for a woman. It's unique in other ways, too. It perches at the top of the Okefenokee Swamp near Waycross. You can get your money's worth from this park by just camping on one of the spacious sites on Laura Walker Lake and enjoying the spectacular sunset. Besides the view, you may even spot one of the wild pigs in the park. But, for the active camper, that's just the iceing on the cake. The park and surrounding area offer many choices. The park boasts an 18 hole championship golf course. You can stalk deer or otter with your camera on the Big Creek Nature Trail, enjoy boating or fishing on the lake and swim in the pool during the summer months.

The Okefenokee Swamp Park introduces you to some of the swamp 'critters' up close and personal. The animals here are featured in their own type habitats. The pens are spacious and there are only enough bars and fences for safety. One six or seven foot alligator dozes on the bank of a pond with no fences between him and you. You visit the otters from a boardwalk around their land and pond combination home. Some choose to sleep, curled nose to tail in a hollow on the bank. Others frolic in the water and beg for a handout. Of course animal food machines are available, but the inhabitants appear well fed. The racoon prefers to spend his time curled up inside hollowed out stump and even food doesn't tempt him. The bobcat perches on a tree limb. When he yawns, you see why the chainlink fence is necessary.

A swamp version of the 'odd couple', are bears and turkeys. You observe their extremly large area from behind glass. Both bear and bird seem happy with the arrangement.

Along with the larger animals, the park has a fine Serpentarium. Fortunately, here all the snakes are in sturdy, glass fronted cages.

Perhaps the most educational portion of the park is the Swamp Creation Center. Even the worst photographer can't miss getting a good picture of an alligator here. Just aim your camera at Old Roy, a stuffed alligator named for a former director of the park. There's quite a tale attached to Old Roy in more ways than one. He died in the summer of 1972 of old age after living in the park for twenty years. He was estimated to be about ninty when he died. The reason he came to live in the park in the first place is because of a bad habit he developed in wild. He learned to attack the boats of fishermen and help himself to their catch. He weighed 650 pounds, was twelve foot ten inches long and had a girth of seventy inches. When you see him you understand why local fishermen breathed a sigh of relief on hearing of his capture.

The remainder of the center tells the history of the swamp and how it was formed.

There are several boat tours ranging from the Pioneer Island Tour to the deep swamp tours. The longest of the swamp tours is The Land of Trembling Earth Tour, which goes deep into the Okefenokee and lasts two hours. The Pioneer Island tour is a short trip on a Seminole Indian waterway. It makes a stop at Pioneer Island.

Pioneer Island provides a glimpse of rural life in the 1800's. A reproduction of the Wiles Cabin offers an interesting view of the dangers faced by early Georgia settlers.

Kids of all ages will enjoy the petting zoo. The historians among you will be more interested in the cultural aspect.

Maxie Wiles was a Scottish immigrant who settled in the area in 1832. He and his wife along with their ten children and several cousins were not prepared when a band of Seminole and Creek Indians swooped down on their little cabin, burned it to the ground and killed Maxie, his wife, six of their children and a cousin. This raid in 1838 was the last Indian Massacre in Georgia.

Okefenokee Heritage Center traces the history of the area. It presents a very complete picture of Waycross history around the turn of the century. There is a school room and cabin interior as well as a room devoted to the area's Black history.

Out back is a model T and a horse drawn white hearse. Of course, no history of Waycross is complete without a train. The train and depot transport you to the time when Waycross was a rural crossroads and timber center.

Adjacent to the museum is Southern Forest World. Here you can stand inside a giant hollow cypress or climb a fire tower. The museum pays tribute to the time when many of the world's pencils were made from the giant cypress that grew in the trembling earth of the Okefenokee. It also is a reminder to use the earth's resources wisely.