Artifact Preparation for a Jupiter Riverbend Park Museum

Hi! My name is Dick Kazmar and I am the Interpretive Center Initiative Committee Chairman of the Loxahatchee Battlefield Preservationists (LBP). I am excited to announce that the LBP, a Non-Profit Section 501 (c)3 Organization, is working with our partners to begin the design process of building a museum in Riverbend Park in Jupiter, Florida starting in October 2026. However, interim funding of $20,000 is needed to catalogue, photograph and store the many artifacts and displays, that are currently in historians’ homes, in a secure, climate-controlled storage unit for about five years while the museum is being built. We also plan to build a Virtual Museum from the 3-D photographs with your investments.

The Jupiter Riverbend Park Museum will reveal 5000 years of history of a hammock that is now Riverbend Park (including Loxahatchee River Battlefield Park). While proving that two battles of the Seminole War took place in Riverbend Park, archaeologists documented 43 historical sites within the park, some over 1000 years old. Ten of the sites are related to Powell’s Battle that took place on January 15,1838 and Jesup’s Battle that took place on January 24, 1838. The United States Military, accompanied by the Alabama and Tennessee Militias, fought against the Native Americans, joined by the Seminole Maroons (self-emancipated slaves and their descendants). After the battles, over 600 Native Americans and Seminole Maroons were captured at Fort Jupiter and marched to Fort Brook in Tampa on the Florida Trail of Tears for emigration to the Arkansas Territory (currently Oklahoma). Riverbend Park has recently been listed on the United States National Register of Historic Places.

Please help us through your generosity to realize our dream of building a museum for the education of our children and our history-starved public.