Welaka State Forest is a 2,287-acre protected forest in North Central Florida on the eastern bank of the St. Johns River near Welaka. Stretching along Putnam County Road 309 between two parts of the Welaka National Fish Hatchery, it includes the Beecher Unit in Fruitland and the Welaka Unit in Welaka. Its significance lies in its location beside the Mount Royal site, a place William Bartram described in chapter 4 of Bartram's Travels. That setting ties the forest to both the St. Johns River landscape and one of the best-known early written accounts of the region, while it continues today as part of Florida's state forest system.