The National Park Service will reopen the Chekika day-use area on Monday — one of the Everglades’ closest spots to Miami. </p><p>Its popular picnic area will be open from dawn to dusk until May 1. </p><p>The area offers a boardwalk, wildlife viewing, picnic shelters, barbecue grills, a nature trail and portable restroom facilities. </p><p>It is also a good staging location for bicycle rides along the paved roads and canal banks in the East Everglades section of the park. </p><p>Chekika is open seasonally because of flooding problems during the wet season. </p><p>This popular part of the park is in the northeastern area, at the west end of Southwest 168th Avenue. </p><p>This popular local natural resource is also steeped in historical significance. </p><p>Chekika is named after a famous Seminole chief during the Seminole wars. </p><p>His men used a tree island similar to this one as a staging point for a raid on Dr. Henry Perrine, who was killed on Indian Key in 1842. </p><p>After the raid, troops from Fort Dallas (Miami), led by Colonel Harney, attacked the hammock and killed chief Chekika. </p><p>The actual tree island where Chekika was killed is about 10 miles from present-day Chekika in Shark River Slough. </p><p>Before becoming Chekika State Recreation Area in 1970, the area was a private resort called Grossman Hammock Mineral Springs, famed for a bubbling mineral spring that some believed had healing powers. </p><p>Chekika was added to Everglades National Park in 1991, along with 44,000 acres of state owned lands in the Everglades, as part of the Everglades Expansion Act of 1989.