Many regions of our great land have their legends - part myth, part reality. Texas has its legend of Pecos Bill and in the great North woods, lumberjacks still tell the tales of Paul Bunyon.

Okeechobee is no exception. Its own larger-than-life legend is nestled among its pages of history. A man whose exploits - some true, some embellished to the status of myth - have been related down through the years until he has become larger than life. He was called Pogy bill.

In nearly every conversation with old-time residents, his name will invariably be brought into the conversation. His fame is woven into the colorful fabric that constitutes the history of Okeechobee County.

William E. Collins was born May 24, 1884, on an American Vessel which was anchored in the harbor of Sydney, Australia. Some accounts claim that his parents were not legally joined in wedlock at the time of his birth. Young Collins grew up and worked around cargo vessels. It was not the most genteel of environments, and the young man soon acquired a reputation in fighting - and winning those encounters.

Another yarn claims that while still in his teens, he became fed up with the treatment of crew members and left a sip in Buenos Aires. He allegedly made his way across the Andes to the Pacific Cost of Chile, a rugged journey at the turn of the century, and at any time, according to those who have made the trip. From South America, he found his way to the United States and eventually, to Florida. He worked in central Florida clearing land and ended up in Tampa working as a boilermaker. As he moved about and matured, his reputation with his fists grew.

Some stories related that he was once a professional prize fighter. But, others say that story started with an episode in Tampa. He became active in politics there, and was so embroiled that the opposition imported a pugilist to eliminate his influence from an upcoming election. He turned the tables, eliminating the prize fighter, and giving the basis for another tale of this past - that of being a professional boxer.

By 1919, he had arrived on the shores of Lake Okeechobee, a 26-year-old man in the full bloom of his manhood and he joined the crew of Jim Tucker at Sand Cut, in present-day Palm Beach County. It wasn’t long before he had his own camp and the lake soon learned of his fists. He was a natural for the commercial fishing life on Lake Okeechobee. The pay was excellent in those early days and the life was lawless and exciting.

In the Alfred and Kathryn Hanna book, "Lake Okeechobee: Wellspring of the Everglades," Bill’s place in those early days is best described:

‘His personal magnetism, his complete courage and prowess with his fists won him recognized leadership among that Brotherhood of the Seine, who brought their huge hauls to the town of Okeechobee, jammed fat rolls of bills into the pickets of their breeches, and by way of recreation, playfully, but thoroughly, took the town apart. He was, it is said, as tough and hard as the toughest and hardest of them. He drank, gambled and fought, not with guns and knives, but with his powerful fists."

Of Pogy Bill’s many battle scars, the most noticeable was the absence of a finger, which allegedly as bitten off by an opponent in combat. Another fisherman, known in the pages of history only as Tampa, got Pogy’s finger caught in his mouth during a fight. Pogy was too stubborn to give in, so the other man just bit it off.

While he loved to drink, and gamble, and fight, all historical accounts report that he had a strange sense of justice. He would not tolerate innocent parties being victimized in an unequal struggle. His own brand of justice is best exhibited in the stories of the lifelong friendship between him and Albert Berka, the town baker an immigrant from Austria. On more that one occasion, he came to the rescue of the Viennese baker.

When a bunch of drunken fisherman invaded the bakery in the wee hours of the morning, and proceeded to use the baker’s cans of fruit for target practice, Pogy Bill arrived on the scene and demanded that each of them dig up $25 to cover the cost of the damages done to Mr. Berka’s shop, fruit and dignity.

Some fisherman waylaid Mr. Berka’s errand boy as he was delivering a bread order. After they had brightened off the helper, the group retired top Mr. Bryant’s Rough House on Taylors Creek. Mr. Berka rushed to the scene, filled with rage, only to be ignored by the perpetrators of the crime. Then, Pogy Bill stepped in and each one of the men contributed $5 and the baker had $75 to replace the destroyed merchandise.

Pogy Bill was usually at the forefront of the fisherman’s fun when they arrived in town. The local businessmen were unable to maintain law and order with the rowdy fishermen, and efforts to reduce, if not eliminate, the recreational frolics of drunken fishermen were in vain. Those frolics often left may of those businesses in shambles.

The late Ellis Meserve lived on the second floor of the hardware store he had built on South Park Street. He said in those early days, he and his wife, Faith Raulerson Meserve, would sit on the porch, which extended over the sidewalk, and watch the fights in which the fishermen, the hunters, the cowmen, and others would stage nearly every Saturday night in the middle of the park.