Larry and Penny Thompson Park

Story

The Larry and Penny Thompson Memorial Park is the largest park/campground in Miami-Dade County .The park, adjacent to Zoo Miami, totals 270 acres . It is located in southwest Miami, two miles west of the Florida Turnpike's Exit 13 between SW 134th Ave. and SW 122nd Ave. on the north side of Eureka Drive .FeaturesThe park has a 22-acre lake, picnic shelters, restrooms, bike trails and horse trails. The 60-acre camping area has 240 RV sites and a heated pool. There’s additional space for tent camping. The campground office has a permanent historic display. It includes Larry Thompson’s 1941 Remington Noiseless Portable Typewriter he used to write his Miami Herald columns while on cross-country camping trips with his family, plus family photos and memorabilia.NamesakesLarry Thompson was a humor columnist for the Miami Herald for more than two decades until his death February 18, 1973. He is in the Florida Newspaper Hall of Fame. His wife Gladys "Penny" Thompson (née Rhodes), who died September 22, 1975, was a pioneer in women’s aviation during the 1940s-1950s. She was the Florida chapter president of the Ninety-Nines, the women’s pilot organization founded by Amelia Earhart. While in the Civil Air Patrol, she flew over the Gulf of Mexico searching for German submarines during World War II. Her plane was one of several hundred destroyed in a 1945 blimp hangar fire at the Richmond Naval Air Station, part of which was rebuilt as the park.