Lake Jackson in northern Leon County has dried up, this time due to an ongoing drought in the state capital, but it’s unclear whether the two are connected.
The lake has been the subject of recent discussion by the Leon County Commission as they reversed a controversial comprehensive plan change that would have allowed for more development in the area.
Before the last drought in 2021, the last one in 1999, there was a massive silt removal effort that saw 100,000 truckloads of sediment removed by dump trucks.
It’s a rain-fed lake whose bed is dotted with sinkholes that drain into aquifers. A Porter Sink is a sinkhole that causes drastic drying and acts as a kind of bath stopper. There won’t be a lake until the troughs are re-blocked, and because of the ongoing drought, there’s no telling when there will be enough rainfall to replenish the current grasslands.
Where is Lake Jackson?
Lake Jackson is located in north-central Leon County, Florida, northwest of Tallahassee, along U.S. Highway 27.
How often does the lake dry out?
Lake Jackson has been drained or dried out at least a dozen times since 1837. Native Americans called it Okeheepkee, or “lost waters.”
In 1539, when the conquistadors wintered in present-day Tallahassee, Hernando de Soto’s scribe made no mention of this. They do describe the prairies and plains where Lake Jackson is today. An English merchant working in northern Florida in the 1740s also made no mention of the lake.
But early settlers took notice of the lake. Especially when it disappeared in 1836. It repeated the feat in 1886, 1909, 1932, 1956, 1982, 1999 and 2006 and most recently in 2012.
Lake Jackson is a rain-fed lake. Its riverbed is pockmarked with cesspools that flow into aquifers.
Why does dryness occur? Is it just the drought?
Lake Jackson is a “closed basin” with no major creek or stream water supply. Drought is the primary factor that exposes the lake bottom. The last limestone outcrop was in 2012, but only briefly.
A common misconception is that the lake dries out every 20 years or so, but the simple answer is that the lake bottom is exposed during widespread local droughts; there is no specific timetable.
Water leaves the lake through evaporation from the surface, transpiration from emergent plants, and water seepage into sinkholes (of which there are hundreds).
What do visitors say?
The Tallahassee Democrat has reported extensively on the drying up of Lake Jackson over the years. Here are some reactions from previous stories:
“It’s spectacular,” Cora Fabian said, standing above Porter Flume, gazing at the bizarre landscape of canyons, crevasses and towering cliffs on the limestone lake bed. “Some of the rocks are masterpieces. I see all these little pictures in the rocks. Right there, is Groot from The Avengers. It’s amazing how sunlight and water can create art.”
“This is just a chance to see the sinkhole once it opens,” said Mike Hamilton, who is from Tallahassee but now lives in St. Augustine.
“It’s so beautiful,” Kathy Ryan said. She and her spouse, Joe, moved to Tallahassee from Orlando. They had never heard of the disappearing lake.
Are there caves beneath Lake Jackson?
One Monday morning in 1999, Lake Jackson was reduced to a trickle, and Tom Scott, Guy “Harley” Means and Mike Hill looked at the 20-inch-wide gap into which the water was flowing and realized it was big enough to accommodate them.
Scott retrieved the second ladder, “tied a rope around my waist, attached it to Mike’s truck, and then went down another ten feet and inspected the limestone around the base.”
He found himself in a room that led to a cave that stretched to the north, east, and west. They were carved by millions of years of flowing water dissolving limestone lake beds. I haven’t explored the caves since this adventure.
Did you find anything after the water drained?
In 2021, Lake Jackson dried up and two human skulls were discovered in the mud of the 4,000-acre aquatic preserve along U.S. Highway 27.
Two human skulls found in Lake Jackson have been determined to be of Native American ancestry and may date back five centuries, after evaluation by state archaeologists.
Ryan Ash, deputy director of the Florida Department of State, said in an email that the skull originated in the American Midwest between the 1400s and 1600s.
He did not explain how the skulls ended up on the dry lake bed. Some county officials have privately speculated that it may have been an artifact collector who realized it was illegal to possess the artifacts and dumped them into the lake.
This story contains material previously published in the Tallahassee Democrat.
This article originally appeared in the Tallahassee Democrat: Vanishing Waters Reveals Lake Jackson’s Hidden Beauty