Buckingham Hike

Jun 17, 2016
1 min read

The Buckingham Army Airfield was used for the training of bomber pilots and gunners. It was one of the biggest complexes of its time with a population rivaling that of fort myers. It has over seven hundred buildings and five runways on 7000 acres. Buckingham was built for World War II in 1942. Before they built the airfield, most of Buckingham was swamp land filled with gators and bugs. They had to drain the land before anything could be built. After building this small city, it was heavily used until the end of the war. Now, the city is all but gone with just a few structures remaining. Built over with houses and is part of what is now Lehigh. I had the fantastic opportunity to learn and photograph this preserve for the Lee County, FL Conservation project. They hold guided hikes many times a year at different places. There will be more places such as this. I will try and go on as many hikes I can. It’s a good opportunity to learn and find new exciting things. In another upcoming blog, I will go more in depth as to how to join and which hikes are coming up. The preserve holds many things I did not get to see. It swampy after a hard rain. We couldn’t go and see much of the preserve. The history was rich and the water was high. Maybe at some point in the next few months I will have more pictures of what is in this massive preserve.