No telling of the history of Okeechobee County would be complete with telling something about the county’s greatest resource, Laguna del Esperitu Santo (Lagoon of the Holy Spirit). Over the centuries, this is just one of the names given to the body of water we now call Lake Okeechobee, the second largest fresh water lake in the United States.

Down through history, it has been known as Mayaimi, Lake Mayacco, and Lake Mayoco. For almost 300 years, the great body of water, covering approximately one-half million acres, and with 135 miles of shoreline, lay undiscovered in Florida’s interior, surrounded by myth and legend.

A Spaniard, Escalonte de Fontaneda was captured by the Calusa Indians and held as a slave for 17 years during the 1500s. Following is release, he told stories of a great body of water of which the Indians spoke and which supposedly had many villages of Indians living around the shores.

During 1823, English engineer Charles Vigonles explored the interior of the state. He did not discover the lake, which stretches 37 miles long from north to south and some 32 miles from east to west. In this report about the St. Lucie River, he alluded to the possible existence of it.

The St. Lucie River "…gives the idea of having traveled a long region from the west, perhaps in the much-talked of Lake Mayoco, which like the Fountains of Youth has never been found." The lake remained encased in legend until the 1830s when the U.S. Army pursued Indians to its shores.

Some old timers refer to the first noteworthy event in Okeechobee County as Colonel Taylor’s Christmas Party. On December 25, 1837, the Battle of Okeechobee pitted the soldiers of the U.S. Army against a group of Seminole Indians. The battle remains noteworthy for it is one of the few which the Indians claimed victory during the Seminole Indian Wars. The Indians consisted of Creeks and Miccosukees, fighting against relocation to Oklahoma reservations, who challenged the troops at a point near the mouth of Taylor Creek and Lake Okeechobee.

The army troops were led that day by Col. Zachary Taylor, later to become president of the United States. After the battle, the interior region north of the Lake remained unexplored and unsettled until Hamilton Disston and his dredges began their work on the Kissimmee River in the 1880s.

North of the 730-square-mile lake some 150 years ago, the county north of the shore line was crowded with dense stands of water oak, cypress, pop ask, rubber and palmetto trees. Stretching some 30 miles north from the lake were savannas dotted with small pools, many of which were named according to the vegetation grown in them. For example: sawgrass ponds, flag ponds and maidencane ponds.

There was plenty of wild game and birds. Species recorded by old timers include: otters, coons, alligators, wildcats, panthers, deep, bears, and turkeys. Great blue herons, white herons, egrets, whooping cranes, anhingas, wood ibises, cormorants, spoonbills dotted the landscape and the skies above the savannas.

Meandering throughout the prairie scene for a distance of about 100 miles was the scenic Kissimmee River. During the annual five feet of rain fall, much of the prairie was covered with water to a depth of several inches. This is the area now referred to as the Kissimmee River floodplain.

When Hamilton Disston signed the drainage contract with the State of Florida in 1881, he not only received title to 4 million acres of prime Florida real estate, he was also committed to reclaiming much of that very acreage. One of the first tasks his dredges took on was to dredge a navigable waterway from the cow camp that would become the town of Kissimmee down the twisting and turning river to Lake Okeechobee.

That action changed forever the face of Lake Okeechobee and South Florida.