John Stretch Park is a small roadside park on the south side of Lake Okeechobee. The park provides picnic areas, restrooms, a large grassy field, an outdoor basketball court and a boat ramp. Admission is not charged. The entire north edge of the park is dominated by the twenty-foot dike surrounding the lake. Set into this dike at one end of the park are flood control machinery and a lock for moving boats into and out of the lake.
This park also displays several diesel engines, valves, and pipes that once were part of the flood control facility.
The park is named in honor of John H. Stretch. A plaque in the park explains that Stretch worked as director of recreation and conservation for the flood control district between 1963 and 1970.
Read more about John Stretch Park: Location
Famous quotes containing the words stretch and/or park:
“Anything I can say about New Hampshire
Will serve almost as well about Vermont,
Excepting that they differ in their mountains.
The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;
New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Linnæus, setting out for Lapland, surveys his “comb” and “spare shirt,” “leathern breeches” and “gauze cap to keep off gnats,” with as much complacency as Bonaparte a park of artillery for the Russian campaign. The quiet bravery of the man is admirable.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)