In October 1975, the bones of a giant ground sloth turned up at the bottom of the lake in what is now Reed Canal Park. South Daytona's 2024 grant application says the remains were 12 feet below ground. That depth let experts identify the animals that lived around the sloth, including a mammoth, a mastodon, the rare Cuvieronius elephant, tapir, capybara, palaeolama and a glyptodont, which the application describes as a nine-foot armadillo.
Fifty-one years later, a T. rex has turned up at the same park. The city's October 9 update calls it "T-REX HAS BEEN SPOTTED AT REED CANAL PARK!" and reports that "the last of the dinosaurs have arrived" at the new Prehistoric Playground.
Florida never had a T. rex, and the playground's planners know it. The dinosaurs are there to set off the real local story underneath them. South Daytona's Ice Age discovery is one of the best fossil finds ever made of its kind in North America. The playground is the city's way of bringing it back to the pond where it was found.
What came out of the pond
The sloth wasn't a lone find. Beyond the large mammals, the grant application says experts recovered remains of about 50 other species. Some of them still live here today, including deer, bobcat and raccoon. The site became known as "The South Daytona Bone Bed." The museum that now holds the skeleton calls it "The Daytona Beach Bone Bed."
The sloth itself is Eremotherium laurilardi. The museum describes the skeleton as 13 feet tall and the living animal as weighing three to five tons. Dr. Gordon Edmund, curator of paleontology at Canada's Royal Ontario Museum, identified and reconstructed it. The city's application quotes his view that it is the best-preserved and most complete fossil of the species ever found in North America.
Accounts of the dig differ. The museum says workers and volunteers spent about two and a half years uncovering the remains. The city's park page says professional and amateur archaeologists dug "for months," and that the find drew attention from as far away as Canada. A 2020 Daytona Beach News-Journal column places the find in a sand pit at Reed Canal Road and Nova Road. The city and the museum both describe it as the pond. Either way, it's the same corner of town where families now park for the playground.
Florida's dinosaur problem
Florida has no dinosaur fossils because the peninsula was underwater during the Mesozoic Era. A 2011 News-Journal piece on Volusia's fossil finds put it this way. The animals found here are Ice Age "mega-fauna" mammals, including giant ground sloths, mastodons, mammoths, saber cats, dire wolves and the glyptodon. They lived in this area from roughly 130,000 to 10,000 years ago. The same piece notes that the beach was about 50 miles farther east during the last ice age. Volusia was a coastal lowland of marshes, ponds and small rivers.
The playground was designed with that history in mind. The city's application to Volusia County's ECHO program built the theme around the sloth:
"The proposed plan of this expanded playground would be prehistoric themed centered around the giant sloth skeleton discovered at the park. This theme would highlight the history of the area and the interpretive signage will dicuss the animals discovered here in Florida and the difference of the animals found in other parts of the United States."
The project scope calls for custom statues of the giant ground sloth and of dinosaurs, to show the difference between the prehistoric mammals found at the park and dinosaurs from other places. The T. rex is the comparison. The sloth is the hometown animal.
A 50th anniversary that turned into a 75th
The original schedule tied the playground to the sloth's anniversary. The 2024 application planned to bid the work in November 2024 and award the contract in January 2025. It expected substantial completion in August 2025, with a celebration in October 2025 marking 50 years since the discovery.
That date passed, and the project found a new anniversary. South Daytona turned 75 in June 2026, since the Florida Legislature approved its charter on June 18, 1951. City council minutes from July list the opening of "our dinosaur land inside Reed Canal Park" as the last of the city's anniversary events. Here is how 2026 has gone so far, according to city records:
| Date | What the city reported |
|---|---|
| Feb. 10, 2026 | A 75th anniversary event is planned alongside the Reed Canal makeover |
| March 23, 2026 | Playground work begins; playground, dog park and Reed Canal Road entrance close |
| May 12, 2026 | Bridge entrance reopens; $701,356 approved for turf and berm work |
| July 28, 2026 | $33,500 approved for the concrete base; foundation complete |
| Oct. 9, 2026 | Last dinosaurs arrive; ribbon cutting "getting closer" |
The ribbon cutting is the other half of the 75th celebration. The first half is the Melodie Park ribbon cutting. That project includes a fishing boardwalk, the original bicentennial rock fully restored, a veterans monument, and a time capsule to be opened in 2101. The city has also set up a Walk Through History at Central Park, at Big Tree Road and Magnolia Avenue, with banners honoring former mayors and the current council.
What the new playground actually holds
The playground is a lot bigger than the one it replaces. The application lists the old playground at 80 by 80 feet and plans an expansion to 116 by 130 feet, set back another nine feet from the parking lot. The city reports these features across its updates:
- New and expanded accessible equipment, with a stated goal of meeting or exceeding ADA standards
- Swing sets with saddle seats, net or tire swings, parent-and-child swings, baby seats and an accessible seat
- A fossil digging area and dinosaur sounds, with lights mentioned in the July minutes
- Plush artificial turf and a shade cover
- Custom sloth and dinosaur statues with interpretive signs
- More picnic tables and new benches
The application budgeted the project at $1.22 million, with $600,000 from a Volusia County ECHO grant and $620,000 in city match funds. The single largest contract approved so far is for the ground, not the climbing equipment. In May, the council approved $701,356 for ForeverLawn Central Florida to install turf and build a playground berm through a Sourcewell cooperative contract. That figure alone is more than half the original budget. The city hasn't published a final total yet.
The old playground equipment is going to Ned Wagner Park, and the city plans to add a dog park there too.
Getting into the park next week
The rest of Reed Canal Park is being renovated alongside the playground. The October 9 update says the city is renovating the disc golf course, reworking the walking trails and repainting the bridge. For the coming week:
- The Reed Canal Road entrance is closed Monday, October 12 through Friday, October 16.
- The park and lake stay open through the two Nova Road entrances.
- The city lists 2871 South Nova Road as the lakeside address and 919 Reed Canal Road as the playground address.
The park covers 30 acres around the pond. It has a multipurpose field, pavilions, picnic areas, restrooms and a trail for walking, jogging and cycling. The city says the pond draws anglers and model sailboat enthusiasts. The application also describes shell hiking trails in the park's nature area and paved paths through the developed sections.
Where the real sloth is right now
The skeleton the playground celebrates is in the Prehistory of Florida Gallery in the Lemerand Wing of the Cici & Hyatt Brown Museum of Art, Science & History in Daytona Beach. The museum was formerly known as MOAS. Its admission page says the museum has been closed to daily visitors "as of March 29" while it prepares for a future expansion. Select planetarium events and community programs are still running. The page doesn't say when daily admission will return. The museum's upcoming events page and its [email protected] address are the places to check.
That means this fall, the closest any South Daytona family can get to the sloth is a statue at the edge of the pond where it was found, about 12 feet above where it lay. The city hasn't set a ribbon cutting date yet. Its October 9 update says only to "stay tuned for the date and time."
Once the ribbon cutting date is posted, the Wendy Schwoerer Team would be glad to help you keep track of South Daytona's anniversary projects, from Reed Canal Park to the Melodie Park boardwalk. We're always happy to talk through what's changing in the city, whether you have questions now or later. Contact Us anytime.
