Cape Sable | |
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![]() Satellite image of Cape Sable | |
Coordinates: 25°16′20″N81°07′25″W / 25.272185°N 81.123638°W | |
Location | United States |
Cape Sable is the southernmost point of the United States mainland and mainland Florida. It is located in southwestern Florida, in Monroe County, and is part of the Everglades National Park.
The cape is a peninsula issuing from the southeastern part of the Florida mainland, running west and curving around to the north, reaching Ponce de Leon Bay, at the mouth of the Shark River. It forms the southern and western margins of Whitewater Bay.
There are three prominent points on the cape, each of which hosts a designated backcountry campsite:
The campsites are part of the "outside route" of the Everglades Wilderness Waterway, with permits required for an overnight stay, obtained from the Flamingo Visitor Center. The cape also has many lakes and beaches.
Cape Sable is home to the mangrove diamondback terrapin (Malaclemys terrapin rhizophorarum) and the Florida gopher tortoise ( Gopherus polyphemus ). Before Hurricane Donna reduced their range in 1960, more than 3,000 of the now-endangered Cape Sable seaside sparrows ( Ammodramus maritimus mirabilis) used the cape. [1]
Nearly the full length of the cape facing Florida Bay and the Gulf of Mexico is a fine sand beach extending inland less than 100 yards (91 m). Behind the beach in the eastern and middle parts of the cape is a marl prairie, extending from Flamingo to approximately Northwest Point. Inland from the marl prairie, and over all of the northern part of the cape behind the beaches, is a complex of marshes and mangrove covered land. [2] The largest lake on the cape is Lake Ingraham, which is long and narrow, running just behind the beach from near East Cape to past Middle Cape.
There is little evidence of any extensive settlement of Cape Sable by humans. There are adequate sources of fresh water on the cape, and areas of arable land. There are a few small Indian shell mounds there. The Spanish reported a Tequesta village on the cape. The pre-Seminole tribes of south Florida did not practice agriculture, and probably used the cape as a base for fishing and hunting. [3]
Mariners and fishermen visited Cape Sable to take on fresh water. Hunters also visited the cape, which had more wildlife than the Florida Keys. During the Second Seminole War, residents of the Florida Keys worried about Seminoles' using Cape Sable and threatening the Florida Keys. In 1840, a Seminole raiding party, which was believed to have traveled over Cape Sable, attacked and destroyed the settlement on Indian Key. [4]
The United States government was concerned that Spanish authorities in Cuba were supplying the Seminole to support their resistance. They knew that Cuban fishermen, including the "Spanish Indians" who had been evacuated to Cuba from Florida in 1821, continued to fish along the southwest Florida coast. [5] The United States Army established Fort Poinsett on East Cape in 1838 to discourage contacts with the Spanish and to protect the Florida Keys. This fort did not prevent the Seminole attack on Indian Key. In 1856, during the Third Seminole War, the Army established Fort Cross on Middle Cape. Traces of Fort Poinsett could be seen until it was destroyed by the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. [6]
The settlement of Flamingo, formed around 1892, was the only major settlement on Cape Sable. By 1900, 50 families lived in the small town. In 1905, warden and sheriff Guy Bradley was killed after confronting poachers near the town; his death, along with 2 others, led to the end of the commercial feather trade. In 1910, only 3 homes in the town were still occupied. [7]
In 1912, Henry Flagler received 260,000 acres of land across 3 counties, 210,000 of which were located on or near Cape Sable. The Model Land Company (also known as the Cape Sable Land Company) was set up as a subsidiary of the Florida East Coast Railroad to manage and sell property in the area. The subsidiary president, James E. Ingraham (the railroad's vice president), had a road built from Homestead to the Cape from 1914 to 1916. This road was subsequently named the Ingraham Highway, and in 1922 would be extended to Flamingo. Along the road he also built the Homestead Canal, which extends to the Gulf of Mexico. [8]
In 1916, the Model Land Company constructed a "Club House" on East Cape to serve as sales headquarters and hotel for prospective customers, fishermen and hunters. The building consisted of offices on 6-foot pilings with a enclosed porch on the outside for meal serving, along with 6 tents ("cottages") around the base that were rented for $2.50 per day ($26.52 in 2022). Each "cottage" had a wooden floor, bed, washstand, kerosene lantern, 2 chairs, and mosquito netting. A swimming pool was built nearby with coconut palms, along with a small bridge to Middle Cape and some small drainage ditches to make the land look more appealing. [8]
Ultimately, only a few lots would ever be sold, and the "Club House" was destroyed around 1931 by a hurricane. In 1948 the company sold their 135,000 acres to the NPS for $115,000; the swimming pool could still be seen as late as the 1950s. [8]
The Everglades is a natural region of flooded grasslands in the southern portion of the U.S. state of Florida, comprising the southern half of a large drainage basin within the Neotropical realm. The system begins near Orlando with the Kissimmee River, which discharges into the vast but shallow Lake Okeechobee. Water leaving the lake in the wet season forms a slow-moving river 60 miles (97 km) wide and over 100 miles (160 km) long, flowing southward across a limestone shelf to Florida Bay at the southern end of the state. The Everglades experiences a wide range of weather patterns, from frequent flooding in the wet season to drought in the dry season. Throughout the 20th century, the Everglades suffered significant loss of habitat and environmental degradation.
Chokoloskee is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) located at the edge of the Ten Thousand Islands in Collier County, Florida, United States. The population was 359 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Naples–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Everglades City is a city in Collier County, Florida, United States, of which it was once the county seat. As of the 2010 census, the population is 400. Collier County comprises the Naples–Immokalee–Marco Island Metropolitan Statistical Area. The Gulf Coast Visitor Center for Everglades National Park is in Everglades City.
The history of Florida can be traced to when the first Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula as early as 14,000 years ago. They left behind artifacts and archeological evidence. Florida's written history begins with the arrival of Europeans; the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513 made the first textual records. The state received its name from that conquistador, who called the peninsula La Pascua Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called Pascua Florida.
Flamingo is the southernmost headquarters of Everglades National Park, in Monroe County, Florida, United States. Flamingo is one of the two end points of the 99-mile (159-km) Wilderness Waterway, and the southern end of the only road through the park from Florida City. It began as a small coastal settlement on the eastern end of Cape Sable on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, facing Florida Bay. The actual town of Flamingo was located approximately 4+1⁄2 miles west of the current Flamingo campground area. All that remains of the former town are a few remnants of building foundations, and it is considered a ghost town.
Everglades National Park is an American national park that protects the southern twenty percent of the original Everglades in Florida. The park is the largest tropical wilderness in the United States and the largest wilderness of any kind east of the Mississippi River. An average of one million people visit the park each year. Everglades is the third-largest national park in the contiguous United States after Death Valley and Yellowstone. UNESCO declared the Everglades & Dry Tortugas Biosphere Reserve in 1976 and listed the park as a World Heritage Site in 1979, and the Ramsar Convention included the park on its list of Wetlands of International Importance in 1987. Everglades is one of only three locations in the world to appear on all three lists.
The Second Seminole War, also known as the Florida War, was a conflict from 1835 to 1842 in Florida between the United States and groups of people collectively known as Seminoles, consisting of Native Americans and Black Indians. It was part of a series of conflicts called the Seminole Wars. The Second Seminole War, often referred to as the Seminole War, is regarded as "the longest and most costly of the Indian conflicts of the United States". After the Treaty of Payne's Landing in 1832 that called for the Seminole's removal from Florida, tensions rose until fierce hostilities occurred in the Dade battle in 1835. This conflict started the war. The Seminoles and the U.S. forces engaged in mostly small engagements for more than six years. By 1842, only a few hundred native peoples remained in Florida. Although no peace treaty was ever signed, the war was declared over on August 14, 1842.
Key Biscayne is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, located between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies south of Miami Beach and southeast of Miami. The key is connected to Miami via the Rickenbacker Causeway, originally built in 1947.
Southwest Florida is the region along the southwest Gulf coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The area is known for its beaches, subtropical landscape, and winter resort economy.
Thousands of years before Europeans arrived, a large portion of south east Florida, including the area where Miami, Florida exists today, was inhabited by Tequestas. The Tequesta Native American tribe, at the time of first European contact, occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida. They had infrequent contact with Europeans and had largely migrated by the middle of the 18th century. Miami is named after the Mayaimi, a Native American tribe that lived around Lake Okeechobee until the 17th or 18th century.
Cape Romano is a cape on the Gulf Coast of Florida, United States. It is on Cape Romano Island, one of a group of islands known collectively as Kice-Morgan Island.
The Tequesta, also Tekesta, Tegesta, Chequesta, Vizcaynos, were a Native American tribe. At the time of first European contact they occupied an area along the southeastern Atlantic coast of Florida. They had infrequent contact with Europeans and had largely migrated by the middle of the 18th century.
The Mud Lake Canal is a prehistoric long-distance canoe canal near Flamingo, Florida, U.S. It is located at Cape Sable, in the Everglades National Park. At 3.9 miles (6.3 km), it is the longest of Florida's known prehistoric canals, believed to form a part of a sheltered travel route between the Florida Keys and the Ten Thousand Islands. On September 20, 2006, it was designated a National Historic Landmark and added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Ingraham Lake is a lake in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It located within the limits of Everglades National Park. It is the southernmost lake in the continental United States, located in Cape Sable, and is less than 1,000 acres (4 km2) in size. It is 71 miles (114 km) southwest of Miami. It is accessible to the Gulf Of Mexico by the Middle Cape Canal at its northern border of the lake. It is accessible to Florida Bay by East Cape Canal, at the southern border of the lake. The entire lake is at sea level.
The history of Fort Lauderdale, Florida began more than 4,000 years ago with the arrival of the first aboriginal natives, and later with the Tequesta Indians, who inhabited the area for more than a thousand years. Though control of the area changed among Spain, England, the United States, and the Confederate States of America, it remained largely undeveloped until the 20th century. The first settlement in the area was the site of a massacre at the beginning of the Second Seminole War, an event which precipitated the abandonment of the settlement and set back development in the area by over 50 years. The first United States stockade named Fort Lauderdale was built in 1838, and subsequently was a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. The fort was abandoned in 1842, after the end of the war, and the area remained virtually unpopulated until the 1890s.
Guy Morrell Bradley was an American game warden and deputy sheriff for Monroe County, Florida. Born in Chicago, Illinois, he relocated to Florida with his family when he was young. As a boy, he often served as guide to visiting fishermen and plume hunters, although he later denounced poaching after legislation was passed to protect the dwindling number of birds. In 1902, Bradley was hired by the American Ornithologists' Union, at the request of the Florida Audubon Society, to become one of the country's first game wardens.
The indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in the Florida peninsula of what is now the United States approximately 14,000 to 15,000 years ago, probably following large game. The Paleo-Indians found an arid landscape that supported plants and animals adapted to prairie and xeric scrub conditions. Large animals became extinct in Florida around 11,000 years ago. Climate changes 6,500 years ago brought a wetter landscape. The Paleo-Indians slowly adapted to the new conditions. Archaeologists call the cultures that resulted from the adaptations Archaic peoples. They were better suited for environmental changes than their ancestors, and created many tools with the resources they had. Approximately 5,000 years ago, the climate shifted again to cause the regular flooding from Lake Okeechobee that gave rise to the Everglades ecosystems.
A national push for expansion and progress toward the latter part of the 19th century stimulated interest in draining the Everglades, a region of tropical wetlands in southern Florida, for agricultural use. According to historians, "From the middle of the nineteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century, the United States went through a period in which wetland removal was not questioned. Indeed, it was considered the proper thing to do."
George Washington Storter Jr. was a trader and founder of Everglades City. His grandfather George Sr. migrated in a covered wagon to Platt, Florida, from Eutaw, Alabama in 1877, making his first trip to the Everglades in September 1881 to farm with one William S. Allen.
The Everglades Wilderness Waterway is a 99-mile navigable recreational waterway route within Everglades National Park, also known as Marjory Stoneman Douglas Wilderness. It includes many interconnecting creeks, rivers, lakes and inner bays that are navigable by shallow draft powerboat, kayak or canoe. The official Wilderness Waterway route is 99 miles long, but a traveler can use various additional route options to greatly extend or slightly shorten the trip.