the Florida Legislature dissolve the Dade Memorial Park Commission and moved the park under the care of the then Board of Parks and Historical Memorials. Several facilities were built at this time. In 1957, construction on the recreation lodge was completed. The museum opened on July 4, 1957. By 1959, the park had built a children's playground, two tennis courts, a baseball field, courts for shuffleboard and horseshoes, several picnic shelters, and a barbecue shed. In an effort to restore the park to the conditions at the time of the battle, the Division of Natural Resources removed the archway, the monuments, and the statue of the pelican. At a public hearing about the park, the Division of Natural Resources officials faced strong opposition from long-time Sumter County residents who felt that the changes made to the park dishonored Koonce's vision for the park. Residents recovered the discarded monuments and placed them back in the park. When district naturalist John Dodrill realized that the statue portraying Dade was that of a Union soldier, agency officials attempted to raise money to replace the statue. Feeling that the state was dictating the park's design, county residents opposed the measure. In 1983, Dodrill designed a plaque explaining to visitors that the statue represented all fallen Sumter County soldiers. 1960s About 1968, Sumter County employees found several cylinders measuring long and about in diameter on the Dade Battlefield Historic Site grounds. Suspecting that the vials were munitions that had been buried on the park grounds during World War II, the workers turned the vials over to a state agency. According to former Sumter County civil defense director Vernon Berry, the agency stated that one vial exploded while the agency was analyzing it. 1970s On January 22, 1973, Ney Landrum, Chief of the Division of Recreation and Parks, nominated Dade Battlefield to be placed on the National Register of Historic Places. On November 7, 1973, the National Park Service issued national register number 72000353 to Dade Battlefield, listing the park on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1994, the National Park Service listed the park as a National Historic Landmark. To facilitate the study of the park, the National Park Service placed the park under the themes Political and Military Affairs, 1783–1860—Jacksonian Democracy, 1828–1844 and Westward Expansion of the British Colonies and the United States, 1763–1898—Military-Aboriginal American Contact and Conflict—East of the Mississippi, 1763–1850s. In