 Although the idea of protecting a portion of the Everglades arose in 1905 , a crystallized effort was formed in 1928 when Miami landscape designer Ernest F. Coe established the Everglades Tropical National Park Association . It had enough support to be declared a national park by Congress in 1934 , but there was not enough money during the Great Depression to buy the proposed 2 @,@ 000 @,@ 000 acres ( 8 @,@ 100 km2 ) for the park . It took another 13 years for it to be dedicated on December 6 , 1947 . One month before the dedication of the park , the former editor of The Miami Herald and freelance writer Marjory Stoneman Douglas published her first book , The Everglades : River of Grass . After researching the region for five years , she described the history and ecology of the south of Florida in great detail , characterizing the Everglades as a river instead of a stagnant swamp . Douglas later wrote , " My colleague Art Marshall said that with [ the words " River of Grass " ] I changed everybody 's knowledge and educated the world as to what the Everglades meant " . The last chapter was titled " The Eleventh Hour " and warned that the Everglades were approaching death , although the course could be reversed . Its first printing sold out a month after its release . 
