Evening stroll - Photo by MRT
A large state university like the University of Florida caters to numerous interests—spectator and recreational sports, academics and research, arts and sciences, natural history and performing arts. But if there is one experience that unites us all, it’s probably Lake Alice.
Located on Museum Road by the Baughman Center and across from the bat houses, Lake Alice, which serves as a retention pond for campus stormwater, provides walking trails and meditation areas under canopies of live oaks and vistas with a variety of wildlife--great blue herons, anhingas, gallinules and coots, wood storks, woodpeckers as well as soft-shelled turtles and alligators.
We first learned of Lake Alice when my dad accepted a teaching position at University of Florida in the late 1960s. We moved from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a neighborhood within a short walk of campus.
One evening, we were sitting around the dining room table when neighbors asked if we had seen their 7-year-old son. He had developed an interest in alligators at a time when Curtis Reid—“Gatorman”—claimed to ride Albert, at the time, a “live” team mascot. The evening ended happily—with no injuries.
In the ensuing years, Lake Alice has figured in many of our shared experiences.
By the early 1970s, Lake Alice became part of our morning or afternoon workouts. At that time, a 5-mile loop took us along a fire trail, past community gardens and Lake Alice, then along sandy and lime rock road on the far side of the lake, past agricultural research fields, the pig farm and miniature pony field.
Lake Alice became part of a daily ritual--walks with my sister, where we shared updates on works in progress and savored those ephemeral moments—rising mist, sunrises and sunsets, birds in flight. Walks for “digestion” and conversation after a holiday meal. Impromptu meetups with friends. Adoption of a Lake Alice stray cat Stories about the stealth of alligators—the importance of keeping a distance from the water’s edge, whether with a picnic lunch or small pets. And that chance encounter, a scene from Jurassic Park! Only to realize these tiny raptors were baby gators with a mother nearby.
Lake Alice is a thriving habitat today. But over the years, its supporters have fended off threats—such as the plan (late 1960s) to drain part of the lake to construct a road, a move fought by environmentalist Marjorie Harris Carr and law professor Joe Little.
About the same time, Albert the live alligator, who had attended football games, was replaced by people dressed up as team mascots.
In the late 1980s, citizens and the UF community rallied to protest the construction of dorms across from Lake Alice and related plans to widen access roads to campus.
As a result, the area has more designated walking and cycling paths, pedestrian crosswalks, round-abouts and the Baughman Center, which seems to rise from the lake waters. Two bat houses, constructed near the community gardens, now have an estimated 500-thousand bats, which emerge just after sunset to feed, an event which draws small crowds.
A favorite professor, the quest for primary sources, a football game or tennis match, or even an all-nighter to finish a final project in art or architecture might make up our individual campus memories. But maybe recollections of a Lake Alice experience has stuck with us all these years. After all, it has provided a chance to make nature part of our daily routines and to understand the importance of conservation in our lives.
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Related Works
“About Lake Alice.” UF Planning, Design & Construction. University of Florida. https://pdc.ufl.edu/resources/conservation-management/lake-alice/about-lake-alice/. Accessed 9 January 2026.
“Albert the Alligator.” For Educators. Florida Museum. https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/educators/resource/albert-the-alligator/. Accessed 10 January 2026.
Helzer, Chris. “Creating ‘Defining Moments’ in Nature.” The Prairie Ecologist. 21 July 2021. https://prairieecologist.com/2021/07/21/creating-defining-moments-in-nature/#:~:text=Some%20ways%20to%20create%20unforgettable%20memories%20in,about%20anything%20of%20interest%20to%20your%20audience. Accessed 10 January 2026.
Macdonald, Peggy. Marjorie Harris Carr: Defender of Florida's Environment. Gainesville, Fla, 2014. cited in Lake Alice. 26 July 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Alice_(Gainesville,_Florida). Accessed 9 January 2026.
Van Hoose, Natalie. “The Ultimate Campus Move-In Challenge: Rehoming UF’s Iconic Bat Colony.” UF News. 11 August 2022. https://news.ufl.edu/2022/08/bat-house-renovation/. Accessed 11 January 2026.
