Lake Jackson is a shallow, prairie lake on the north side of

Leon County, Florida Leon County () is a County (United States), county in the Florida Panhandle, Panhandle of the U.S. state of Florida. It was named after the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, the population w ...

, United States, near

Tallahassee Tallahassee ( ) is the capital city of the U.S. state of Florida. It is the county seat of and the only incorporated municipality in Leon County. Tallahassee became the capital of Florida, then the Florida Territory, in 1824. In 2024, the est ...

, with two major depressions or

sinkhole A sinkhole is a depression or hole in the ground caused by some form of collapse of the surface layer. The term is sometimes used to refer to doline, enclosed depressions that are also known as shakeholes, and to openings where surface water ...

s known as Porter Sink and Lime Sink. The lake is located in the

Red Hills Region The Red Hills or Tallahassee Hills is a region of gently rolling hills in the southeastern United States. It is a geomorphic region and an ecoregion. Location The Red Hills physiographic region of northern Florida was defined in 1914 as most o ...

, and has fluctuated from periods of being dry to a maximum elevation of above sea level. The lake is approximately long and its area is . There is no outflow from streams or runoff.

Geography

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost transcontinental highway in the Interstate Highway System of the United States. It is the fourth-longest Interstate in the country at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. It was part of the origina ...

runs across the southern tip of the lake. There is another Lake Jackson and Little Lake Jackson in Sebring, Florida, not related to the current article. The

Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park Lake Jackson Mounds Archaeological State Park (8LE1) is one of the most important archaeological sites in Florida, the capital of chiefdom and ceremonial center of the Fort Walton Culture inhabited from 1050–1500. The complex originally inclu ...

is located adjacent to the lake.

Geology

Karst

Drainage

Water drains from the lake into the

Floridan Aquifer The Floridan aquifer system, composed of the Upper and Lower Floridan aquifers, is a sequence of Paleogene carbonate rock which spans an area of about in the southeastern United States. It underlies the entire state of Florida and parts of Alaba ...

through the sinkholes. These are usually partially or completely plugged with sediments, but collapse when

groundwater Groundwater is the water present beneath Earth's surface in rock and Pore space in soil, soil pore spaces and in the fractures of stratum, rock formations. About 30 percent of all readily available fresh water in the world is groundwater. A unit ...

levels drop, allowing lake water to funnel into the aquifer, which can completely drain the lake. This has occurred on numerous occasions. Newspaper accounts report draining episodes in 1829, and again in 1840 and 1860. Sellards reports that the lake drained though a sinkhole in June 1907 and drained again during the summer of 1909. Lake Jackson drained again in November 1918, and yet again in January 1932 and October 1936. The lake drained in 1956–1957, and again in 1981–1982. More recently, Lake Jackson drained in 1999, May 2007, June 2012 and most recently in June 2021. During the 2007 drainage, the lake flowed down the Porter Sink, but pools of water still remained.

Ecology

Fauna

Large numbers of waterfowl

species A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...

are found at Lake Jackson. These include

great blue heron The great blue heron (''Ardea herodias'') is a large wading bird in the heron family Ardeidae, common near the shores of open water and in wetlands over most of North and Central America, as well as far northwestern South America, the Caribbea ...

little blue heron The little blue heron (''Egretta caerulea'') is a small heron of the genus '' Egretta''. It is a small, darkly colored heron with a two-toned bill. Juveniles are entirely white, bearing resemblance to the snowy egret. During the breeding seas ...

great egret The great egret (''Ardea alba''), also known as the common egret, large egret, great white egret, or great white heron, is a large, widely distributed egret. The four subspecies are found in Asia, Africa, the Americas, and southern Europe. R ...

snowy egret The snowy egret (''Egretta thula'') is a small white heron. The genus name comes from Provençal French for the little egret, , which is a diminutive of , 'heron'. The species name ''thula'' is the Araucano term for the black-necked swan, a ...

limpkin The limpkin (''Aramus guarauna''), also called carrao, courlan, and crying bird, is a large wading bird related to rails and cranes, and the only extant species in the family Aramidae. It is found mostly in wetlands in warm parts of the America ...

Moorhen Moorhens—sometimes called marsh hens—are medium-sized water birds that are members of the rail family (Rallidae). Most species are placed in the genus ''Gallinula'', Latin for "little hen." They are close relatives of coots. They are ...

American coot The American coot (''Fulica americana''), also known as a mud hen or pouldeau, is a bird of the family Rallidae. Though commonly mistaken for ducks, American coots are only distantly related to ducks, belonging to a separate order. Unlike the we ...

wood stork The wood stork (''Mycteria americana'') is a large wading bird in the family (biology), family Ciconiidae (Ciconiiformes, storks). Originally described in 1758 by Carl Linnaeus, this stork is native to the subtropics and tropics of the Americas ...

osprey The osprey (; ''Pandion haliaetus''), historically known as sea hawk, river hawk, and fish hawk, is a diurnal, fish-eating bird of prey with a cosmopolitan range. It is a large raptor, reaching more than in length and a wingspan of . It ...

bald eagle The bald eagle (''Haliaeetus leucocephalus'') is a bird of prey found in North America. A sea eagle, it has two known subspecies and forms a species pair with the white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), which occupies the same niche ...

fish crow The fish crow (''Corvus ossifragus'') is a species of Corvus, crow associated with wetland habitats in the eastern and southeastern United States. Taxonomy and etymology The fish crow was given its Binomial nomenclature, binomial name by the ...

, and

least tern The least tern (''Sternula antillarum'') is a species of tern that breeds in North America and locally in northern South America. It is closely related to, and was formerly often considered conspecific with, the little tern of the Old World. Oth ...

. Common reptiles and amphibians include the American alligator, Southern chorus frog,

Southern leopard frog ''Lithobates sphenocephalus'' or ''Rana sphenocephala'', commonly known as the southern leopard frog, is a medium-sized anuran in the family Ranidae (the true frogs). The southern leopard frog is one of the 36 species currently or formerly classi ...

, and the Florida softshell turtle. Among the mammals that inhabit the shoreline is the

round-tailed muskrat The round-tailed muskrat (''Neofiber alleni'') is a species of rodent in the family Cricetidae, sometimes called the Florida water rat.Brown pelican The brown pelican (''Pelecanus occidentalis'') is a bird of the pelican family, Pelecanidae, one of three species found in the Americas and one of two that feed by diving into water. It is found on the Atlantic Coast from New Jersey to the mouth ...

s, rare inland, have also been found on occasion.

Flora

Submerged vegetation is abundant throughout the lake and include blue hyssop, coontail, green fanwort, variable-leaf milfoil, and

bladderwort ''Utricularia'', commonly and collectively called the bladderworts, is a genus of carnivorous plants consisting of approximately 233 species (precise counts differ based on classification opinions; a 2001 publication lists 215 species).Salmon, Br ...

. Marsh plants include maidencane, pickerelweed, American lotus, and slender spikerush. Numerous wetland tree and woody plant species also inhabit the drier portions of the transitional marsh. These include

sweetgum ''Liquidambar'', commonly called sweetgum (star gum in the UK), gum, redgum, satin-walnut, styrax or American storax, is the only genus in the flowering plant family Altingiaceae and has 15 species. They were formerly often treated as a part of ...

, a variety of

oak An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northern Hemisp ...

s, wax myrtle, the Carolina willow ( salix caroliniana), and

elderberry ''Sambucus'' is a genus of between 20 and 30 species of flowering plants in the family Adoxaceae. The various species are commonly referred to as elder, with the flowers as elderflower, and the fruit as elderberry. Description Elders are most ...

. Exotic invasive species have also established themselves in some areas, including Chinese tallow and

hydrilla ''Hydrilla'' (waterthyme) is a genus of aquatic plant, usually treated as containing just one species, ''Hydrilla verticillata'', though some botanists divide it into several species. It is native to the cool and warm waters of the Old World in A ...

Preservation

Lake Jackson is part of the Lake Jackson Aquatic Preserve, along with Lake Carr and Mallard Pond. The preserve was established in 1973.

Fire suppression

Lake Jackson Volunteer Fire Department was established in 1988 and serves the largest territory of all Leon County's Volunteer Fire Departments. They respond to between 75 and 100 service calls each month including incidents on Route 27, Route 90 and

with assistance from the Tallahassee Fire Department.

References

External links

1940 map of Lake Jackson & community
*
Lake Jackson EcopassageLake Jackson Mounds Archaeological ParkFriends of Lake JacksonVideo of Lake Jackson Drydown, December, 2002 (NWFWMD)
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Jackson Jackson may refer to: Places Australia * Jackson, Queensland, a town in the Maranoa Region * Jackson North, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson South, Queensland, a locality in the Maranoa Region * Jackson oil field in Durham, ...

Geography of Tallahassee, Florida