Looking back gives us perspective when looking forward.
This old map showing the Palm Beach Farms Company Lands is interesting as is shows where people saw the “edge of the Everglades” when they were first developing around 1910.
Today it is hard to judge where we are and what “was” the Everglades…Some of us are literally “in it.”
Looking back, it is easy to see how after over 100 years the waters of Lake Okeechobee are becoming more and more “toxic.” Kind of like a fish tank that can never be cleaned out….
One has wonder if the developers of the Everglades ever considered what would happen to the lake by building and developing farm lands right in the way of the natural flow, and then really blocking it by eventually putting a dike around the lake? In this map, the push was to develop lands further west beyond the eastern ridge…Think all all the development today out west beyond the ridge and into the historic Everglades!
Perhaps in their wildest dreams the early developers would have never envisioned how many people live in south Florida today. Maybe they didn’t care. In any case, today we all here in South Florida are connected somehow to Lake Okeechobee, Florida’s “liquid heart,” for drinking water, recharge, recreation, property values, and our health.
Over our history the human spirit has overcome greater threats than toxic algae; I am confident we will once again.
LINKS:
Lawrence E Will Museum of the Glades: https://www.museumoftheglades.org
https://www.facebook.com/lawrenceewillmuseum/
Lake O acres today?/451,000: http://www.lakelubbers.com/lake-okeechobee-107/
Township and Range? the squares: http://www.jsu.edu/dept/geography/mhill/phygeogone/trprac.html
Palm Beach Farms Company Lands-History (-bottom of blog by Ginger Peterson, Boyton Historical Society: http://www.jsu.edu/dept/geography/mhill/phygeogone/trprac.html