Kathryn Abbey Hanna Park

In 1900, railroad magnate Henry Flagler set aside this stretch of oceanfront for the Black employees of his Florida East Coast Railway and hotel companies, and it became Manhattan Beach, the first African American beach resort in Florida. For decades it was the only beach in the Jacksonville area open to Black families, a place to breathe salt air freely in a segregated South.

Black entrepreneurs built it into a real community. Pavilions offered dining, dancing, bathing-suit rentals, and lodging, and there were cottages and even an amusement area, drawing beachgoers from across the region. It flourished into the late 1930s, when the larger American Beach on nearby Amelia Island began to draw the crowds away.

That story was nearly lost, and local historians have worked to recover it. When you walk the sand at Hanna Park today, you are walking the same shore where families once made joyful summers in the face of Jim Crow, and knowing that changes how the place feels underfoot.

The park carries an unexpected name for good reason. In the 1940s, philanthropist Winthrop Bancroft donated land here to the state on the condition that it be named for Dr. Kathryn Abbey Hanna, a Chicago-born educator and author who had settled in Florida, wrote works of state history, and served on the board that oversaw parks and historic places.

Over the years the holding grew into the large city park it is now, managed by Jacksonville. It preserves not just the beach but the whole living system behind it, the dunes, the freshwater lake, and the dense coastal woods, which is why the place feels so much wilder than the developed strand to the south.

The result is a park that honors two legacies at once: a historian remembered in its name, and the Black community whose resort once stood on its sand.

The obvious draw is the ocean. A mile and a half of natural beach backed by tall dunes gives plenty of room to spread out, swim, surf-fish, or simply walk, and because it takes a little effort to reach, it rarely feels crowded the way the town beaches can.

Behind the dunes the park turns green. More than twenty miles of trail thread the coastal hammock, from gentle family loops like the Long Trail and Back 40 to expert-only mountain-bike runs with names like Grunt, Misery, and Tornado Alley that riders come from across the region to test themselves on.

At the heart of it all lies a 60-acre spring-fed lake, calm and freshwater, where you can fish from the bank, rent a kayak or canoe, or paddle a quiet loop while herons work the shallows. Few parks let you swim the Atlantic, ride forest singletrack, and paddle a lake all in one visit.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.