Tomoka Basin State Parks – Tomoka State Park

LOCATION

2099 N. Beach St.
Ormond Beach FL 32174

VIEW MAP

PHONE

386-676-4050

CALL NOW

WEBSITE

floridastateparks.org

BROWSE

FACEBOOK

@FriendsofTomokaBasinStateParks

LIKE PAGE

HOURS

8 a.m. until sundown,
365 days a year

ADMISSION

$5 per vehicle


This former land of the Indigenous people called Timucua, became a Florida State Park in 1945. On May 7, 1973, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. The long-vanished Timucua are commemorated with an huge public art installation from 1957 by Fredrick Dana Marsh. Called “Legend of Tomokie,” it features Chief Tomokie at the top of a wall of warriors. While there is no historical evidence of a real Chief Tomokie, the monument is a reminder that this area was once populated by Native Americans who lived and fished these waters for centuries before Europeans arrived.


The Tomoka River and the Halifax River (the Intracoastal Waterway) meet at the north end of the park forming a natural peninsula. With 12 miles of shoreline, the park’s 2,000 plus acres covers maritime hammock and estuarine salt marshes. The vast Tomoka Basin watershed has provided man and animal with food and shelter since its earliest inhabitants thousands of years ago.  The name Tomoka comes from the Timucua, an Indigenous people who primarily lived in northeast Florida centuries ago. Today, visitors can picnic, hike and camp beneath the same ancient live oaks that shaded them. Visitors can canoe and fish in the surrounding waters just as they did in a time before European colonization.

Tomoka Point is where the Timucuan village known as Nocoroco (Nōcō-rōcō) may have stood from approximately 1,000 years ago until at least the arrival of the Spanish. The village was first visited by Spanish explorers led by Alvaro Mexia in the early 1600s. The explorer wrote that the Timucua were “of goodly stature and covered in many tattoos.”  The Timucuans lived throughout northeast and central Florida, making them the predominant Native American group in the area.  Nocoroco was one of the largest villages visited by the invading colonizers in Florida.

The village once covered the Tomoka Point area where the freshwater Tomoka River meets the saltwater Halifax River. The nearby salt marsh is home to a variety of animals and plants, many of which were a part of the Timucuan diet, such as oysters and clams. The Timucuans left remnants of their daily catch, turning this land into a giant shell midden rising 40 feet above the shoreline. Along the shore of the Tomoka River you can still see the sloped earth and mounds of oyster and clam shells along the riverbank. These shells are the last remaining artifacts of Nocoroco. The Timucuan population was devastated by exposure to European diseases for which they had no natural immunity. By the late 1700s, it is likely that the Timucua people were completely gone.  When you visit the park, do no disturb any artifacts and show respect for the land.


page information credit: Florida State Parks, Friends of the Tomoka Basin State Parks, City of Ormond Beach, Florida, floridahikes.com, floridarambler.com, discoverfla.com
photos from the sources listed above, as well as publicly posted online sites with thanks to the contributors