Beef cattle have been the economical umbilical cord providing the life blood to Okeechobee County since the first days of settlers in the area that has become present-day Okeechobee County.

Florida’s scrub battle provided a means of livelihood to many of the first white settlers in the state, and the source of these animals have provided historians and novelists with many stories and legends.

In the 1948 book, Lake Okeechobee: Wellspring of the Everglades, authors Alfred J. and Kathryn A. Hanna describe their theory on the source of the herds of wild cattle discovered by the early pioneers.

It is a romantic thought that stray animals from 16th century exploring expeditions of DeNarvaez and DeSoto formed the nucleus of what has become a great industry.

More likely, the beginning of Florida cattle were the loot brought by Indians who fled south from Georgia during the 18th century, the cattle of Southern loyalists fleeing into St. Augustine during the American Revolution, herds abandoned when the British left Florida in 1783, and such strays as runaway slaves managed to bring with them into Florida.

Whatever the source, the Seminole nation had possessed extensive herds by the time Florida become a U.S. territory; white settlers followed their example. As both Indians and whites moved south, so did the cattle, through Alachua county into the Kissimmee valley and so to Lake Okeechobee. After the Civil Way, cattle growing extended will south of the Caloosahatchee River. Search for pasturage explains the course of migration.

The Hannas’ explain that by the 1870’s herds ranged in size from 5,000 to 50,000 head. Rustling was prevalent throughout the state because of the fact that the state had open range and cattle roamed freely through the trackless expanses.

Noted Florida historian, Gene Burnett, in his first volume of Florida’s Past, colorfully describes those rugged individuals who were the early cowboys. Burnett, in his commentary, refers to the Spanish theory as the source of scrub cattle. Florida’s last frontier in the late 19th century spawned a breed of cowpoke every bit the equal of his Western counterpart.

In fact, the intensely individual, free-wheeling stylist who herded the ancient Spanish stock of hardy beef over the scrubland the piney woods of Florida’s sprawling flatlands, often make his Western brother look like a mere comic strip Tumble-weeds. Zane Grey’s purple sagers had nothing on Florida’s palmetto cabbagers.

Burnett also notes how cattle rustling was dealt with. Even though cow-stealing, then as now, was strictly a no-no, this rule was more often honored in the breach by the early Florida cattle baron. In the vast open fenceless ranges stretching for miles, herds often got "mixed up" and both baron and his men "plumb swore they couldn’t tell one from another. Those who thought they could tell also swore, usually on a stack of Colts and Winchesters, blazing mightily.

Ft. Basinger on the west side of the Kissimmee River and the community of Basinger on the east side provided the cradle that nestled the newborn cattle industry in Okeechobee County.

Kyle VanLKandingham in his book, "History of Okeechobee County," documents the names and the dates of those early pioneer families during the period from the 1860’s through the 1890’s.

The first white settlers were Arthur and Thomas Daughtrey from the Zolfo-Crewsville area and they reportedly arrived during the 1860’s. Both these brothers settled on the west bank of the river near Ft. Basinger, in present-day Highlands County. Other names of the early settlers are names which are still associated with the beef cattle industry some 130 years later.