continued… There was a large exhibit on the agriculture industry. Clewiston was dubbed “America’s Sweetest Town” because it is home to The United States Sugar Company, Florida’s largest producer. Here was a model of the plant.
In 1925, a group of investors bought a giant tract of land to create a sugarcane plantation. Interestingly enough, the principal investor also owned a company that produced Celotex boards, which were made from the fibrous remains of sugarcane after the sugar was processed out. Sugarcane became the predominant crop in the Clewiston area and Southern Sugar Company was the largest employer and property owner. One of their biggest early challenges was drainage. They dug canals to help the water go away and planted trees to help absorb the water that stayed. They bought a defunct sugar mill from another part of Florida and moved it to Clewiston. The mill opened in January 1929. Nine months later, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression set in. In 1930, they went bankrupt and were planning to halt production. One of the creditors and major shareholders, Charles Stewart Mott, stepped in to save the operation. He formed US Sugar and bought out Southern Sugar a few months later.
continued… The next exhibit was on the early inhabitants of the Kissimmee River Valley and Lake Okeechobee areas. The Kissimmee River Valley, which began just south of Orlando, was the primary source of water to Lake Okeechobee. Lake Okeechobee was the second largest natural freshwater lake contained entirely within the contiguous 48 states. It covered 730 square miles, 467,000 acres, and was only 9 – 12 feet deep (3 – 4 meters). It was 30 miles long (north to south) and 33 miles wide (east to west). Many of its shallow, grassy areas were similar to the Everglades. The lake was the centerpiece for the South Florida’s Water Management District’s network of canals and water storage. And as we learned yesterday, the lake directly fed the Everglades.
The prehistoric people of Southern Florida were called the Mayaimi people. The group that lived In the Kissmissmee River Valley and Lake Okeechobee were a distinct subculture that have been named the Belle Glade people. Lots and lots of structures and artifacts have been found. There was a display with pottery, tools and decorations, as well as a canoe. Some of the tools were made of materials that were not found in the Kissmissmee River Valley and Lake Okeechobee area, but were indigenous to other parts of Florida, indicating that trade lines existed amongst the various sub-tribes.
Interestingly enough, Florida has over 400 ancient dugout canoes, which was the highest concentration in the world. They range in age from 500 to nearly 7,000 years old. Per the sign, Florida’s soil was wet and boggy, so wood decayed slowly. If a wooden canoe got stuck in muck without oxygen, it didn’t deteriorate. The old canoes were usually found during times of drought, when the low water levels exposed the mud.
The next exhibit was about the Spanish invasion. It was apparently common for Spanish ships sailing from Central/South America to wreck in the shallow waters of Florida. The gold, silver and other treasured they had stolen would wash up onshore. Quite bit of Spanish treasure has been found in the Kissmissmee River Valley, Lake Okeechobee area, and the Everglades. There were stories of people finding gold in strange places — one guy was digging his tires out of the mud and another family was pulling up plants and gold was attached to the roots. It was believed the indigenous people made trips to the coast, found the treasures scattered along the shore, and took them back to their homes. Here was a model of a Spanish Galleon, which was the main type of ship utilized during the era when Spain ruled Florida.
In school, Keith was currently studying about the United States’s rapid expansion during the 1800s. As part of the expansion, Native American people living in desirable locations were forced off their land and moved to less desirable locations. The Seminole Indians of Florida resisted, so the US waged three wars against this tribe and their allies. Many of these allies were either free blacks or runaway slaves that the Seminoles had welcomed into their tribe. These black people were referred to as Black Seminoles.
It was fortuitous that we happened to be studying the Seminole Wars while we were so close to where they’d occurred. We wanted to take Keith to a museum about the Seminole history and we found one that looked interesting in a town called Clewiston, located on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee and about halfway between the east and west coasts of Florida. Since it was nearly an equidistant drive between North Palm Beach and where Special Blend lived on the west coast of Florida, we asked them if they’d be interested in meeting us. They said they would.
In the morning, Eric talked to Yacht Tech about the sight gauges – unfortunately, those particular gauges weren’t made anymore. They decided the best course of action was to recycle the old gauges by changing the valves and cleaning up the corrosion. At the end of the conversation, Yacht Tech confirmed that no one was scheduled to come out to Kosmos today, so Eric joined Christi and Keith.
It was windy and the wind created big waves out in the ocean. In the early morning, Eric drove over to the beach to watch the big waves. It also rained on and off all day – sometimes it rained hard for a few minutes and stopped, sometimes there were a few big scattered drops now and then, sometimes just drizzle. The humidity made the air temperature hot, but the wind was cold, so it made the temperature fluctuate in a weird way.
A Yacht Tech employee came out this morning and worked on the water maker. He changed the oil and salinity sensor. Eric had been unable to change the sensor himself because of the odd wrench size. The technician had actually made his own specialty wrench by altering another wrench. Having the right tool for the job did the trick. This was another project that Eric hated to pay someone else to do, but he knew that he would risk hurting his back again if he tried to do it himself.
In the early afternoon, Christi and Keith headed down to Ft. Lauderdale to see Tiki Tour. They were still in Ft. Lauderdale, but had moved locations. This time, the drive was uneventful, but the Maps app routed us through the airport, which was weird. Christi and Keith picked up Fynn and the three of them went to the Museum of Discovery and Science in downtown Ft. Lauderdale.
