MOORE HAVEN LOCK Cross-State Canal, Okeechobee Lntracoastal
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MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER FL-18 Cross-State Canal, Okeechobee lntracoastal Waterway FL-18 Moore Haven vicinity Glades County Florida WRITTEN HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE DATA HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD SOUTHEAST REGIONAL OFFICE National Park Service U.S. Department of the Interior 100 Alabama St. NW Atlanta, GA 30303 HISTORIC AMERICAN ENGINEERING RECORD MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER NO. FL-18 Location: Moore Haven Lock Reservation is located between the southwest shore of Lake Okeechobee approximately one-half mile north of the town of Moore Haven, in Glades County, Florida, and at the point where the Caloosahatchee River (Canal 43) enters the lake. USGS Topographic Quad: Moore Haven, 1970 Universal Mercator Coordinates: Zone 17 N2868520 E491340 Date of Construction: 1935-37 Fabricator: Spadaro Construction Company, Glades County, Florida; Edgar H. Latham Company, Miami, Florida Present Owner: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Present Use: Lock, dam, and spillway for navigation and flood, drought, and regulatory control Significance: Engineered by the War Department in 1935, Moore Haven Lock was designed for preventive measures during hurricanes, floods, and droughts while allowing navigation on the Okeechobee Intracoastal Waterway, a 155-mile passage connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Coast via Lake Okeechobee. In June 2000, the U.S. Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District, proposed to make structural changes to the Okeechobee Intracoastal Waterway's historic lock facilities that would substantially alter the locks that were considered National Register of Historic Places eligible historic resources. A Memorandum of Agreement was signed between the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Jacksonville District and the Florida State Historic Preservation Office stipulating that the St. Lucie, Moore Haven, and Ortona lock and dams MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER NO. FL-18 Page 2 would be documented to Level II Historic American Engineering Record standard. Report Prepared by: David E. Port and Dena E. Hodes, New South Associates Date: December 2001 PART I. HISTORICAL INFORMATION A. Physical history 1. Date of construction: 1935-1937 2. Architect/Engineer: The U.S. Engineer Office, Jacksonville at Clewiston is credited for the complex design. The U.S. Corps of Engineer's supervising construction engineers at Moore Haven and later Ortona included Carawan Nelson and W.F. Simpson while the consulting engineer of the Okeechobee Flood Control District at both facilities was George B. Hills. 3. Original and subsequent owners: State of Florida, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 4. Original Builder: The Edgar H. Latham Company was the supervising architectural firm for the construction of the Moore Haven facility as well as Ortona Lock and the four hurricane gate areas along the Herbert Hoover Dike. They were responsible for the lock chamber and sector gates. Spadaro Construction Company was responsible for the lock tenders' houses, garages, warehouse, and lock control house. The Moore Haven facility spillway (S-77) was constructed by Murphy Construction Company of West Palm Beach, Florida in 1965-66. 5. Alterations and Additions: The spillway was added to the reservation in 1965 and is located 530' to the east of the lock. MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER NO. FL-18 Page 3 B. Historical Context Although the southern section of the Florida peninsula was relatively unknown and little occupied, the quest to drain the area began as soon as the United States acquired Florida in 1821. Americans were convinced that the soil of Everglades would support some of the richest agricultural lands in the country if only it was not inundated with so much water. This dream was heightened as truck farming became popular in the nineteenth century and refrigerated rail cars made shipment to northern destinations possible. 1 The prospect of a waterway through Lake Okeechobee across the state was also an incentive for draining programs. Florida became a state in 1845 with a population of only 58,000, most of them residing in the northern sections of the peninsula. With news of statehood, pioneers immediately began plans to settle and explore the remote southern reaches. This region, however, was still regarded as a swampy, humid, miserable land occupied by many determined Seminoles who had been pushed into the area during the First and Second Seminole Wars earlier in the century. The drier expanses of Texas and California were more appealing and as a consequence, land hungry settlers were lured westward rather than further south into Florida. In 1848, Senator Westcott, however, introduced a bill "granting Florida all lands, lakes and watercourses south of the established surveys, on condition that drainage projects to be financed by the sale of public land at $1.25 an acre [and to] begin not later that 1851."2 The federal government approved this bill because it placed the financial burden of reclamation, estimated to be $500,000.00, on the state. Two or three small canals were thought to be adequate enough to drain the Everglades. These canals from the Atlantic to the Gulf would also be very important to U.S. commerce, allowing for an alternate shipping route that avoided the dangerous reefs further south. With the enactment of the Swamp Land Act, 20 million acres, most of it in the Okeechobee Basin, were conveyed to Florida. This 1 David Mccally, The Everglades: An Environmental History (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1999), 86. 2 Alfred Jackson Hanna and Kathryn Abbey Hanna, Lake Okeechobee: Wellspring of the Everglades (New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1948), 55. MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER NO. FL-18 Page 4 act also transferred to the State responsibility for drainage and development of the marshlands. 3 There was no fixed date to start the drainage of the newly acquired state lands, and the actual patent for this federal grant was not completed until 1903. 4 In 1855, the Florida legislature created a new agency, the Board of Trustees of the Internal Improvement Fund (I.I.F.), to manage state swamplands and use the proceeds of land sales for internal improvements. Although the 1850 Swamp Land Act required that official surveys were to be conducted as part of the swamp and overflowed lands selection phase, the agency did nothing with the Everglades until 1906. 5 Once appropriate lands were identified and approved, the federal authorities patented them to the state, at which time they could be sold. With the granting of this land, however, problems with the Seminoles appeared again resulting in further violence and the Third Seminole War. The new President, James Buchanan, came up with a financial plan to remove the Native Americans. The Treaty of August 7, 1856, gave both Creeks and Seminoles in Arkansas large sums of money, if they could convince their remaining tribesmen to move to reservations further west. 6 Eventually on May 7, 1858, 165 Seminoles boarded the steamer Grey Cloud in Tampa and left for their new home. Some Seminoles stayed behind and hid in the Okeechobee Basin. In 1858, many of the forts were abandoned again, while some of the outposts such as Fort Myers and Denaud developed into permanent settlements. Almost all of the 20 million acres from the Swamp Land Act fell within the Fort Thompson area and the Okeechobee Basin. Public land surveys established a system of range and township lines beginning in 1860. Field notes for the north boundary of Sections 2 and 3, T43, R29E, contain references to Fort Thompson 3 G.E. Dail, Organization for Water Conservation in Florida (St. Petersburg, Florida: University of South Florida Press, submitted to Central and Southern Florida Flood Control District by Florida Conservation Workshop, Center for Continuing Education, July 1966), 1. 4 Hanna and Hanna, 56. 5 C.J. Clausen, et al, Cultural Resource Survey of Portions of the Port La Belle Development Tract, Glades and Hendry Counties, Florida, Report submitted to General Development Corporation, Miami, Florida, by CCC Enterprises, Inc., North Port, Florida, Survey Project No. 107, July 1980, 40. 6 Charlton w. Tebeau, A History of Florida (Coral Gables, Florida: University of Miami Press, 1971), 170. MOORE HAVEN LOCK HAER NO. FL-18 Page 5 and to a road leading to Fort Center. 7 However, much of the land around the Okeechobee Basin remained unsurveyed. The 1870s saw a resurgence of federal surveys in the 20 million acres of the Okeechobee wilderness. The increased use of public lands for grazing and agriculture fueled the need to identify and delineate townships and ranges. Once land was identified and appropriated, federal authorities patented it to the state, and at which time, it could be sold. Still only a portion of the Okeechobee wilderness was officially surveyed, and most public land sales were from previously surveyed defaulted properties that had returned to the state. Untamed waters covered most of the desolate land surrounding Lake Okeechobee and there were only a few permanent settlers. Early fishermen, hunters, frontiersmen and outlaws slept in their boats or on unknown or uncharted islands. These adventurers caught catfish, hunted bird plumes, alligator hides and otter furs. Florida cattlemen passed through during the extensive drives beginning in the 1860s. The Board of Trustees of the I.I.F. attempted to sell land to potential settlers at remarkably low prices, payable in bonds. They often found buyers in railroad and timber companies that would procure the natural resources and then default on payments. Upon the failure of the bonds, the State of Florida faced financial disaster and all future land sales were to be on a cash-only basis. In 1879 under the direction of Captain Andrew Damrell of the Corps of Engineers Mobile District, Assistant Engineer J.L. Meigs was chosen to conduct a survey of the Caloosahatchee River, which runs between Lake Okeechobee and the Gulf of Mexico.