Is the biblical ’Garden of Eden’ really found in this Florida state park?

LIBERTY COUNTY, Fla. – Florida is filled with all kinds of fantastical places, including secret tunnels, mysterious houses, and even a haunted restaurant.

But according to one man, the Sunshine State is also home to the fabled “Garden of Eden.”

The Torreya State Park along the Apalachicola River was founded in the 1930s, being a unique spot where endangered Torreya trees grow.

These trees are among the rarest in the world — and among the oldest, state officials report.

But while that may be a crucial highlight of the park on its own, it led to an even stranger conclusion by Elvy Callaway, a minister and retired lawyer from Bristol in the mid-1900s.

Callaway reportedly studied the area for decades, and he claimed the geography of the area was reminiscent of the Garden of Eden, as featured in the Bible.

“The Garden of Eden, east and west, is not over 10 miles wide, paralleling the (Apalachicola) River from Chattahoochee down to Bristol,” he told a reporter in 1972.

The book of Genesis describes “a river watering the garden flowed from Eden, and from there, it separated into four heads.” Callaway reasoned that this could only apply to two places: the Apalachicola River or another in Siberia.

And it’s far too cold in Siberia for that to be the birthplace of humanity, he reckoned.

In addition, “Torreya” is another name for what Bristol residents called “Gopher wood,” which some believe was used to build Noah’s Ark. As a result, Callaway believed this was further proof of his theory.

After scouring the area, Callaway also posited that the verdant landscape was reminiscent of another line from the Bible: “Out of the ground (in the Garden) made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight.”

And while there aren’t any apple trees in the forest, Callaway said that the “Tree of Knowledge” featured in the Bible is a spiritual metaphor, so it’s not likely to be found here.

“The word apple is not even mentioned in the Book of Genesis. That’s been added on by fiction and superstition. The Bible mentions ‘apple’ three times, but they’re speaking of the apple of the eye because it’s in the shape of some apples,” he said.

But why would the Garden of Eden be in Florida, as opposed to other parts of the world? Well, he had an answer for that, too.

“When the belief that the Garden of Eden was somewhere else or over in Europe or Africa or someplace, the Western Hemisphere was unknown. They did not know that the continent existed west of the Atlantic Ocean. Therefore, they couldn’t search this continent along with the others to find the river of four heads and these other great natural monuments, which the Bible said was related to the Garden of Eden.

It became my pleasure and my responsibility and my duty to search the North American continent and definitely point out the same, bare-natural monuments that the Bible relates.”

Elvy E. Callaway during a 1972 interview with WFSU-TV reporter Diane Hoffman

Callaway eventually founded a Garden of Eden-themed attraction near Bristol to advertise his findings, state archives show.

While Callaway has long since passed, his legacy still lives on with the Garden of Eden hiking trail at the Apalachicola Bluffs and Ravines Preserve.

The nearly 4-mile-long trail features a challenging trek through the preserve toward Alum Bluff, where visitors can overlook the Apalachicola River from Callaways’ presumed home of Adam and Eve.

Regardless of whether it’s really the fabled garden, this small section of the Sunshine State still offers a myriad of marvels.

For more information on the Torreya State Park, you can visit the Florida State Parks website here.

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