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Did you know that some people believe that the Bible’s Garden of Eden was located right here in Florida?
In the 1950s retired lawyer and Republican candidate for governor Elvy Edison Callaway opened his Garden of Eden Park along the highway in the Florida Panhandle town of Bristol. Callaway believed that God had created man in the delta of the Apalachicola river, which split into four rivers, just as the Bible describes four rivers leading out of Eden.
The area was also the habitat of a rare tree known as the “Torreya yew,” (Torreya taxifolia) an unusual evergreen which can grow up to sixty feet tall, and earned the nickname “stinking yew” for the strong smell of its fruit when crushed. Callaway believed the Torreya was the “gopher wood” that the Bible says Noah used to build his Ark.
In his roadside kiosk, he displayed a Torreya log which he said was a remnant of the Ark. Visitors could pay $1.10 for admission into a wild unspoiled land of dramatic cliffs, rivers, and wildlife, and all proceeds from his “non-profit shrine” were to go to a local Florida retirement home.
Today Callaway’s kiosk is long gone, but you can still hike the “Garden of Eden Trail” in the nearby Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve, run by the Nature Conservancy. The hike is considered one of Florida’s most challenging hiking trails due to the ravines and rough terrain.