HISTORIC RESOURCE STUDY FOR EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK BY • • JOHN C. PAIGE • NATIONAL PARK SERVICE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR 1986 ' .. • • I CONTENTS • Acknowledgements v Chapter 1: Environmental Description and History of Everglades National Park to the Beginning of the First Seminole War 1 Geography and Geology of Everglades National Park 1 Flora, Fauna, and the Climate of Everglades National Park 4 Prehistoric Cultures in the Everglades 7 European Exploration and Settlement 11 British Occupation of Florida 18 United States Acquisition of Florida 22 Chapter 2: The Seminole and Civil Wars in the Everglades 29 Background and First Seminole War 29 Second Seminole War 32 Third Seminole War 58 The Civil War in the Everglades 74 Chapter 3: Commercial Activities in Everglades National Park 83 Commercial Fishing 83 Sponging 87 Turtling 89 • Shellfishing 90 Recreational Fishing 92 Water Transportation 94 Hunting 95 Agriculture 99 Ranching 106 Tannic Acid Production 106 Charcoal Making 107 Railroad Building 108 Tamiami Trail 113 Land Development 127 Oil Exploration in the Everglades 133 Illegal Activities in the Everglades 135 Chapter 4: Drainage of the Everglades 138 Early Plans for Reclaiming the Everglades 138 Hamilton Disston and Drainage 141 Drainage Projects After Disston 142 Everglades Drainage District 143 Chapter 5: History of Scientific Investigation in the ' Everglades 150 ' iii Exploration and Early Natural Histories 150 Ornithological Studies Before the Civil War 151 Botanical Studies Before the Civil War 153 WarGeographical 155 and Geological Studies Before the Civil Scientific Investigation After the Civil War 157 Popularizing the Everglades 160 Scientific Investigation in the Twentieth Century 164 Chapter 6: Establishment of Everglades National Park 167 Plume Hunting 167 Royal Palm State Park 174 The Civilian Conservation Corps at Royal Palm State Park 185 The National Park Service and Everglades National Park 187 Chapter 7: Sites 212 Introduction 212 Fort Poinsett 212 Fort Cross 213 Camp Moulder 214 Habitation Sites on the Ten Thousand Islands Everglades City 216 215 Chokoloskee and Flamingo 218 • Cape Sable 221 Hole in the Doughnut 222 Royal Palm State Park Sites 224 Canal Sites 225 Chapter 8: Recommendations for Future Studies 226 Maps 229 Appendixes 249 Appendix A: Sites on National Register of Historic Places Significant for Everglades National Park 250 Appendix B: Royal Palm State Park Legislation 262 Appendix C: Everglades National Park Legislation 267 Appendix D: Amended Everglades National Park Legislation 270 Appendix E: Mineral Rights Legislation for Everglades National Park 274 Bibliography 276 • iv • Acknowledgements • The Historic Resource Study for Everglades National Park has been prepared in accordance with the approved task directive for the project. The research and writing for this project has been fitted to funding restraints including a deletion of a portion of the allocated funds to supplement a deficit in the funding for the archeological inventory for Everglades National Park. This lack of funding has made in necessary to carry out adequate, but not exhaustive research during this project. The author deeply appreciates the flexibility and creativity of management on the Southeast/Southwest Team of the Denver Service Center, and the enthusiasm and assistance provided by the staff of Everglades National Park in supporting this study. The author wishes to thank the following individuals and institutions for their assistance in the completion of this study: National Park Service Chief Historian Edwin C. Bearss; Frederick C. K. Babb, Chief, Branch of Planning, Eastern Team, Denver Service Center, Richard Crawford, National Archives, Washington, D. C.; Ruth Larison, Librarian, Rocky Mountain Region, National Park Service; and the staff of the National Archives, Washington, D. C.; University of Colorado Library, Boulder; South Florida Reseach Center, Southeast Archeological Center, Tallahassee, Florida; Dade County Public Library, Homestead, Florida; and • v by drawing a line from a point on the Big Cypress National • Preserve loop road, approximately one-half mile west from the Tamiami Trail, following the Tamiami Trail west until • midway into the Shark River Slough, then move the pencil in a southerly direction with several slight jogs to the east to complete the outline of Everglades National Park in Florida Bay. 1 The broken dipper of Everglades National Park constantly is being filled with water from Lake Okeechobee which drains out into the Gulf of Mexico and Florida Bay. Beneath the land and water lies a series of complex geological limestone formations of marine origins. These formations toward the end of the Pleistocene age rose slightly from the sea to • create the Florida peninsula. One of these formations, known as Miami oolite, is found along the eastern edge of the peninsula from Miami to Biscayne Bay and in most of the Dade county sections of Everglades National Park. Miami oolite is composed of clay and sand with chemical analysis revealing that the rock contains over ninety percent calcium carbonate and the other ten percent, principally, consists of silica and magnesium carbonate. This limestone can be found in many places at or near the ground surface or beneath several feet of marl, peat, sand, or mud. It 1. Historically, the term "Everglades" has been used to refer to those wetlands of Florida found on the south of Lake Okeechobee containing approximately 1,200 square miles. The focus of this report will be the smaller portion of the Everglades known as Everglades National Park, but the larger .. area of the Everglades will be mentioned to place topics in historical context. .. 2 increases in thickness from thirty feet at Miami to about 2 sixty feet in the Homestead area. Within the Monroe and Collier County portions of Everglades National Park, the dominant geological feature is the Tamiami formation which dates to the Miocene epoch and consists of creamy-white limestones, greenish gray marls, , and silty sand and clay. These limestone formations create a saucer beneath the Everglades with the rim forming the eastern and western edge of the Florida peninsula. The Everglades' rim is cracked in many places where numerous streams and rivers breach it to reach the sea. Naturally occurring acids and natural processes have pitted this limestone formation creating catch basins to trap water. 2. Daniel B. Beard, Wildlife Reconnaissance: Everglades National Park Project (Washington D. C.: National Park Service, 1938), pp. 7-8; Herman Gunter, Florida State Geological Survey: Seventeenth Annual Report, 1924-1925 (Tallahassee, Florida: The State Geologidal Survey, 1926), pp. 174-177; E. H. Sellards, Florida State Geological Survey: Fourth Annual Report, 1910-11 (Tallahassee, Florida: The State Geological Survey, 1912), pp. 76-77; John E. Ehrenhard, Gregory Komara, and Robert Taylor, Everglades National Park, Cultural Resource Inventory, Interim Report Season 1 (Tallahassee, Florida: Southeast Archeological Center, 1982), p. 1; and Charlton W. Tebeau, A History of Florida, (rev.; Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1980), pp. 6-7; John N. MacGonigle, "The Everglades of Florida," Report of the Eighth International Geographic Congress Held in the United States, 1904 (Washington D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1905), pp. 767-769. A variety of scientific and popular papers have been written concerning the geology of the Everglades. The most extensive works on this subject and can be found in the annual reports of the Florida State Geological Survey. 3 These basins form water holes for animals during the dry season. 3 • FLORA, FAUNA, AND CLIMATE OF EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK The flatness of the topography and the supersaturation of the soil with moisture created a vast wetland where a slight variation in elevation can result in strikingly different ecosystems. Starting from the sea and proceeding inland, there are shallow (six feet or less) coastal waters with small keys or islands. The Florida Bay islands often consist of marl fringed with mangrove with little or no dry land where, as the Ten Thousand Islands, apparently, result from coastal lands drowned by rising sea levels. There • mangroves are clustered together and interlaced with a myriad of intricate water channels. After this comes a series of bays and estuaries bordered by mangrove forests containing red, white, and black mangrove. Interspersed in these forests can be found salt marshes and associated grasses, shrub ~egetation and hammocks. The interior areas contain fresh water lakes, sloughs, and marl prairies within 3. Beard, Wildlife Reconnaissance: Everglades National Park Project, p. 6; and MacGonigle, "The Everglades of Florida," Report of the Eighth International Geographic Congress Held in the United States, 1904, pp. 767-769. It should be noted that the limestone rim does not rise above sea level in an area from Cape Sable to above Lostman's River. 4 which are found cypress stands, hardwood hammocks, and 4 pinelands. These environments possess a vast array of life forms including an abundance of insects, shellfish, fish, reptiles, amphibians, mammals, and birds. The waters of Everglades National Park teem with an enormous variety of fresh water and salt water fish which provide a major component in the diet of other animals. Through the millennium, a number of fresh water fish migrated to the park's marshes from more northern regions while other fish that can tolerate both fresh and salt water moved