Florida State Parks offer free admission in celebration of George Washington’s birthday and America’s 250th anniversary
Press release from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – As the nation begins commemorating America’s 250th anniversary, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) invites residents and visitors to explore the places where history unfolded. In honor of George Washington’s birthday, Florida State Parks will offer free admission from Friday, Feb. 13, 2026, through Monday, Feb. 16, 2026, encouraging visitors to experience the landscapes that shaped the nation’s earliest chapters.
Florida’s state parks are more than destinations for outdoor recreation. They are living connections to the people, places, and events that helped define America long before it became a nation. From barrier islands and riverbanks to forts and frontier settlements, these sites offer visitors a chance to walk the same ground where history was made.
“As the nation reflects on 250 years of independence, Florida State Parks invite visitors to experience history not just through exhibits, but through the landscapes themselves,” said DEP Secretary Alexis A. Lambert. “Our parks offer meaningful connections to the people and events that shaped our nation.”
Florida played a complex and often overlooked role during the Revolutionary period. At the time, British West Florida was sometimes described as the “fourteenth colony,” and several present-day state parks preserve sites connected to that era.
Visitors can explore Revolutionary War-era connections at parks including:
- Big Talbot Island State Park and Fort George Island Cultural State Park, where plantations once produced indigo and Sea Island cotton that helped support the British cause.
- Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, where a frontier trading post facilitated commerce between Native Americans and British settlers.
- Tomoka State Park, the site of a British indigo plantation along the Tomoka River.
- San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park, where control of the fort shifted during periods of British rule.
- Fernandina Plaza Historic State Park, Amelia Island State Park, and Fort Clinch State Park, which were connected to small military conflicts and border tensions with the neighboring colony of Georgia.
Please note: Free admission applies to day-use only and excludes Skyway Fishing Pier State Park and Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park. All other fees, including overnight accommodations, special events, concessions, and rentals from park vendors, will remain in effect.
Find your park and plan your visit at FloridaStateParks.org. To learn more about Florida’s role in America’s 250th anniversary, visit America250FL.com.
Kudos to Florida for maintaining free admission also for MLK Day, which the national parks just dropped. We know how upset Rep Byron Donalds must be about that.
What a racist thing to say towards Byron Donald’s. I would expect anything less then from a woke liberal. Triggered again.
“Rep. Byron Donalds shared a photo of himself with former President Donald Trump, captioning it, “Florida is TRUMP COUNTRY…”
“The Trump administration has removed Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Juneteenth from the 2026 National Park Service calendar of free-entry days, replacing them with alternatives like President Trump’s birthday/Flag Day.”
” Federal agencies have begun removing Black history and civil rights content from their websites..”
” President Donald Trump has targeted U.S. cultural and historical institutions – from museums to monuments to national parks – to remove what he calls “anti-American” ideology.
His declarations and executive orders have led to the dismantling of slavery exhibits, the restoration of Confederate statues and other moves that civil rights advocates say could reverse decades of social progress.”
“Trump decried in a social media post what he said was an excessive focus on “how bad slavery was.” This month, in an interview with the New York Times, he said civil rights protections hurt white people..”
Uncle Tom Donald is apparently OK with his relatives history being whitewashed Bear, so he deserves our scorn.
And I would like to point out that this article is about George Washington’s birthday and the celebration of 250 years of the United States, not the Civil War era. All this trash talk you are doing about Constitutional rights and confederacy, black history, slavery exhibits status is not relevant to the year 1776. The concept of slavery was brought to the colonies by British rule and the Spanish. So if you want to be mad at the introduction and process of slavery into this country blame the countries that actually had “KINGs” at that time.
The Origin of the Three-Fifths Compromise
In 1787, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention found themselves confronted with the question of slavery and how hundreds of thousands of enslaved Black people in the new republic would affect the Constitution. The humanity and rights of these enslaved Americans were not a priority of the delegates as they debated this issue. Rather, their debates centered on if and how the enslaved persons would be counted when allocating seats in the new House of Representatives.