The National Park Service will reopen the Chekika day-use area on Monday -- one of the Everglades' closest spots to Miami.

Its popular picnic area will be open from dawn to dusk until May 1.

The area offers a boardwalk, wildlife viewing, picnic shelters, barbecue grills, a nature trail and portable restroom facilities.

It is also a good staging location for bicycle rides along the paved roads and canal banks in the East Everglades section of the park.

Chekika is open seasonally because of flooding problems during the wet season.

This popular part of the park is in the northeastern area, at the west end of Southwest 168th Avenue.

This popular local natural resource is also steeped in historical significance.

Chekika is named after a famous Seminole chief during the Seminole wars.

His men used a tree island similar to this one as a staging point for a raid on Dr. Henry Perrine, who was killed on Indian Key in 1842.

After the raid, troops from Fort Dallas (Miami), led by Colonel Harney, attacked the hammock and killed chief Chekika.

The actual tree island where Chekika was killed is about 10 miles from present-day Chekika in Shark River Slough.

Before becoming Chekika State Recreation Area in 1970, the area was a private resort called Grossman Hammock Mineral Springs, famed for a bubbling mineral spring that some believed had healing powers.

Chekika was added to Everglades National Park in 1991, along with 44,000 acres of state owned lands in the Everglades, as part of the Everglades Expansion Act of 1989.

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