Jul-31-2021

Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens

Hours: Open daily from 8 am to 5 pm, except for Christmas Day and New Years Day.
Admission : Free
Location : 950 Old Sugar Mill Rd., Port Orange, FL 32129

Dunlawton Sugar Mill Plantation’s history began before Florida became a state in 1845. Originally, Florida was divided and sold into large land grants and estates from Spain.

The Dunlawton Plantation and Sugar Mill, a 19th-century cane sugar plantation in north-central Florida, was destroyed by the Seminoles at the beginning of the Second Seminole War. On August 28, 1973, the site was added to the United States National Register of Historic Places under the title of Dunlawton Plantation-Sugar Mill Ruins.

The ruins are now part of the Dunlawton Sugar Mill Gardens. The botanical gardens include interpretive signs about the enclosed ruins, large concrete sculptures of dinosaurs and a giant ground sloth, a gazebo, and plantings of grasses, flowers, bushes and native plants under a canopy of oak trees.

The park is beautiful year round and abundant with native tropical plants and foliage. The sounds of birds, and trickling water as you stroll through the park and lovely grounds.

This is the Confederate Oak, a magnificent tree located in the Sugar Mill Botanical Gardens in Port Orange Florida. This beautiful 250+ year old Live Oak Tree is known as the Confederate Oak because according to legend, Confederate Soldiers frequently camped under it during the Civil War. Its long reaching limbs are covered with resurrection ferns and air plants.