Roughly 350 years ago in about 1650 when the Spanish owned Florida,
they used the province of Apalach in N. FL where Tallahassee now is as
their larder for their annual flota, the huge fleets of galleons
carrying gold back to Spain from the new world. If you look up the
number of men in the flota and remember that it took about 2.5 months
to get from St Augustine to Spain, you will understand why they needed
huge amounts of provisions.
The area around St Augustine could not supply the provisions because
it was not as fertile and had too few Indians to grow the food. I am
not sure why Cuba could not supply it. However, it was known that the
Apalach Indians were civilized living in permanent towns and the
entire area was under intense cultivation. The Spanish set up
missions in the area with one very large fort/mission on what is now
the west side of Tallahassee on a high hill. They intermarried with
the local Indians and got along well except their diseases (measles
especially) reduced the local population by 75% over a 50 yr period.
Getting the food and cattle to St Augustine was a problem. Taking it
overland for 200 miles thru swamps and hostile territory (the Timicuan
Indians did not like either the Spanish or the Apalachees) was
impractical. They tried various methods by boat but these involved
getting the stuff to the coast, a distance of about 20 miles thru
gawdawful deep sand and swamps. Records of the time and a single
Spanish map indicate they used shallow draft boats to get the stuff
from Mission San Luis to their fort at the confluence of the St Marks
and Wakulla Rivers. However, today there is no such waterway. One
can trace some partial waterways where this could be done but nothing
continuous.
Did they really do this? No current map gives any indication of a
long ago waterway. Even some waterways that were known from about
1900 no longer exist because they were filled for various reasons.
Google Earth gives few clues because any potential waterways are under
a dense tree canopy all year.
At the mission, there is a swamp to the NW that existed at that time
and south of it a series of swamps joined to it by a stream that has
been seriously modified over the centuries. This eventually joins
Lake Bradford and several other small lakes and it drains to the SE by
means of “Munson Slough”. If the Spanish used very shallow draft
boats and dammed up the initial swamp, they could let out enough water
to get boats to Lake Bradford and from there there is enough water
naturally to get to……..the water seems to go underground at Eight Mile
Pond.

Tracing North from St Marks and following the St Marks River, it goes
very far to the east, no, this is the wrong way. IF one follows the
Wakulla River north it ends in the main Wakulla Spring (worlds largest
and deepest spring). However, us locals know of an awful branch
called McBride Slough starting from a beautiful spring up in the woods
N of Wakulla Spring and it meanders swampily to the Wakulla River in
an awful snake and gator infested path. The distance between this
spring and Eight Mile pond is about 10 miles. Hmmm, a long distance
to cut through even sand for a few Spaniards and Indians to
accomplish.
This winter, some friends and I went to find some rumored springs
north of McBride and found them waaaaay up the swamp in an area you
would not want to go in Summer because even on a cold day we saw
numerous gators. We found the springs and saw some narrow straight
sections of creek that might have been artificial and are probably
natural but maybe………..The area has been clearcut logged to within 200’
of the water at least twice. This extension reduces the gap to only
about 5 miles, still too far.
Today, we tried to wander the woods south of Eight Mile Pond finding a
heavily flowing outlet going under the road to…………where? Finding more
of it was problematic. The entire area is filled with the most
serious backwoods types of people imaginable all living in ancient
decaying trailers in dense woods and deep sandy “roads” The best we
could do was to get as close to the southern end as we could by
following old firebreaks but we dared not cross any fences.
Back to Google Earth, the gap is now reduced to only 3 miles, maybe
2.5. Is it possible the Spanish dug a channel 6’ wide for that far?
Maybe, maybe, maybe.