A historical marker at the park commemorates the early Anglo-American settlement of the village of Manatee that grew up around the spring.

Three Spanish fishermen guided Josiah Gates, Manatee's first white settler, to this spot in late 1841.

In 1842, Henry and Ellen Clark acquired the spring property and built the town's first trading post.

Over many centuries, people who traveled, hunted, or settled along the nearby section of the Manatee River used water from the spring.

[5][6] Angola was destroyed by a massive slave raid in early 1821; some escaped to the Florida interior or the Bahamas.