Florida has a waterfall. Most Floridians have never seen it.
Falling Waters State Park in Chipley, Florida is home to the state’s only true waterfall — a 73-foot cascade that drops into a cylindrical sinkhole so deep, the water never reaches the bottom. Or if it does, nobody knows where it goes.
The sinkhole is roughly 100 feet deep and 20 feet wide. Geologists believe it connects to an underground aquifer system, but the exact path of the water remains unmapped. It has been flowing into that darkness for longer than Florida has been a state.
The park sits in the Florida Panhandle, far outside the tourist corridor, and sees a fraction of the visitors that crowd the state’s more marketed natural attractions. It costs $5 to get in.
This is the Florida that doesn’t make the brochures — ancient, strange, and quietly extraordinary.
