Eight of Florida's state parks were partially developed by the Civilian Conservation Corps: Torreya, Florida Caverns, Ft. Clinch, Gold Head Branch, O'Leno, Hillsborough River, Highlands Hammock, and Myakka River.

John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, initially acquired in December of 1959, was the first underwater park in the US.

Indian Key Historic State Park (17 acres) was once the county seat of Dade County.

The acquisition of Blue Springs State Park in 1972 was the first major step by the Department, in the Manatee Protection Program and served as the focal point for manatee awareness.

Edward Ball Wakulla Springs State Park has been described as the largest and deepest single spring in the world (600,000 gallons per minute; 185 feet deep).

Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park has the largest variety of wild orchids in the US. Also the home of many designated species; Florida Panther, Everglades Mink, Mangrove Fox Squirrel and the Royal Palm.

Ft. Zachary Taylor Historic State Park holds the largest collection of Civil War armaments in the US.

Big Lagoon State Park near Pensacola is closer to Chicago, Illinois, by car, than to Ft. Zachary Taylor Historic State Park in Key West.

Parks are havens for big trees and parks currently contain 20 US Champions including: Flowering Dogwood, Maclay Gardens, Cabbage Palm, Highlands Hammock, Florida Maple, San Felasco Hammock; and Longleaf Loblolly, Lignumvitae Key.

Lake Kissimmee State Park offers first person interpretation of an authentic 1876 "cow camp", complete with a scrub cow her, cow pony and cow hunter. Other parks where rangers perform the difficult role of first person interpreter are: Ft. Clinch with its Union soldiers, and Hillsborough River at Fort Foster, an authentically recreated 1836 wood picket fort and bridge, with its Second Seminole War soldiers.

The area around San Marcos de Apalache Historic State Park was first occupied by Panfilo de Navaez in 1528 where he built and launched the first ships made by non-native inhabitants in the New World.

The Florida Park Service performs a variety of resource management practices including exotic removal, erosion control, water manipulation, reforestation, and prescribed burning. The prescribed burning program involves more than 200,000 acres of fire type plant communities at 73 parks.

O'Leno State Park contains the site of the first telegraph office and dry kiln in Florida. It also contains portions of the Bellamy Road, which ran from St. Augustine to Pensacola, Florida's first road built by the federal government.

Florida's state park system is made up of a great variety of individual "parks", each with unique management requirements. The 158 areas are classified into 10 major types: state park, state recreation area, state preserve, state museum, state garden, state special feature site (historical, botanical, geologic, wildlife and archaeological), state reserve, state trail, state folk culture center and state fishing pier. The largest unit of the state park system is Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park at 70,836 acres.

The highest waterfall in the state is 70 feet at Falling Waters State Park, the second highest is 20 feet at Torreya State Park.
Carlos Maxwell first recommended Ichetucknee Springs for inclusion in the state park system in 1944. It was acquired in 1970, two years before Mr. Maxwell retired.