The eastern Miramar park is easily reachable from southeast Broward County, Davie, Cooper City and Pembroke Pines, and provides plenty of fodder for environmentalists. Wood storks, ospreys, mottled ducks, blue-winged teal and ring-necked ducks are among its inhabitants.

There's also what Broward environmental administrator Gil MacAdam called "the tallest native fig tree I've seen in my 30 years with Broward Parks" -- an estimated 250-year-old native strangler fig that is about 75 feet high.

But historians also say they're pleased with the park because it's an Indian archaeological site and burial ground. Two mounds, where Seminole Indians are buried, are fenced off from the public. The park is named after Chitto Tustenuggee, also known as Snake Warrior, who lived on the land in the mid-1800s.

"Watching this park open, I feel like the best man at a wedding," said Christopher Eck of the Broward County Historical Commission. "It's a union between historical and environmental interests."

The park is at 3601 SW 62nd Ave., west of State Road 7 and just north of County Line Road.

In 1991, archaeologists found Seminole artifacts on the property dating to 1828, and they said Indians likely inhabited the area until 1896, when white settlers drove them off. Miramar pioneers Henry D. and Annabel C. Perry purchased the property in the 1940s and operated a dairy farm there in the ensuing years, selling to a developer in 1989.

After the Seminole ties were discovered, Miramar city officials quickly designated the land as an archaeological site, and in 1992 the state bought it from the developer for about $2 million, using the State Emergency Archaeological Fund. The state now leases the land to Broward County, which moved slowly to convert the area into a park because the land had to be drained and there were concerns about preserving the artifacts.

Broward's Office of Environmental Services provided about $1 million for drainage, and the Parks and Recreation Division appropriated about $200,000 from the $400 million Safe Parks and Land Preservation Bond that Broward voters approved in November 2000.

But after taking a tour of Snake Warrior's Island last week, Frank Kelley of Miramar said it didn't matter how long it took to open.

"Anytime you preserve something this historical, it's significant," said Kelly, who calls himself "a naturalist at heart."

Said Don Hanson, a 33-year Miramar resident who lives just west of the park: "I didn't realize how far in time this goes back."

Hanson said during the past two years, as the park has been revitalized, he has seen more egrets, herons and ospreys in the area.

"There's been a big resurgence in wildlife," he said. "That's good to see."

The park used recycled plastic, which lasts longer than wood, to build a farm-style fence that discourages visitors from straying too far off the walkway.

The bridges over the area's small lakes and the benches also are made of recycled plastic.

Non-native trees have been removed and about 300 native trees have been planted, including a ring of trees on the south portion of the land that will eventually grow and keep visitors insulated from the sights and sounds of County Line Road.

But the park already is quiet enough for the chirps of an osprey to carry across the marshes, and isolated from city life enough so that visitors can take in the same fresh smells of nature that Chitto Tustenuggee and his fellow warriors experienced almost two centuries ago.

The park is open from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. November through March, and 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. April through October.

(source) Sun Sentinel (Nick Sortal) 2-08-04