Foreverglades_Valiente2019

through these gloomy and mysterious woods, the silence
broken only by a hawk's lonely scream, was an experience
to remember. Yes folks, I just wish that you could have
been there and seen it too.
12 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
10 10 BELLE GLADE FROM SW SW AMP TO TO SUGAR BOWL
told me he was the first to discover these
times. When hunting, he used to camp
Democrat River, but a wind tide had f
THIS WAS THE EVERGLADES 11
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mighty blamed few years. Now they are nearabout as
scarce as the dodo bird, and that's a shame for sure.
The trees weren't high, maybe fifteen or twenty feet
I'd say, and the wood was nearabout as light as cork. Instead
of a trunk, its crooked branches, twisting crazily,
sprung from outreaching buttress roots. Among its green
and glossy leaves you might glimpse big blossoms, cream
colored and scarlet centered, or maybe you'd see the yellow,
fragrant fruit, no bigger than an apple. Like a canteloup
in taste it was, or something like a ripe persimmon,
but good grief, you couldn't eat the cussed fruit, for it
was nothing but a mass of seed in a tough inedible pulp.
On the ground, in angles of the bracing roots, grew
innumerable lacy ferns, while higher than a hunter's head
rose those seed specked leaves of giant ferns, their fronds
uncoiling in Ionic volutes. Covering this forest like a tent
was a perfect blanket, a solid mat, of green moon vines,
spangled at night and on cloudy days with great white
flowers, a gorgeous sight to see. Under those leafy branches
and their moon vine cover you might walk for miles and
scarcely glimpse the sky. Looping from branch to branch
in these cool and shadowy woods were vines with baseballsized,
yellowish brown gourds. This was the "Everglades
gourd", said to be found nowhere else but here. Just as
numerous and as tenacious as these vines were those yellow
strands which tried to bar your way, spun by enormous
brown and yellow spiders.
In the murky gloom of this strange forest you might
chance upon a crooked pop ash tree, a lofty cypress or a
spreading rubber. Perched on limbs and branches you'd
espy many pineapple-like air plants blossoming in gaudy
red and orange, while adding life to this placid scene,
squirrels leaped from branch to branch, while gorgeous
buntings flitted busily to here and yonder. Wandering
through these gloomy and mysterious woods, the silence
broken only by a hawk's lonely scream, was an experience
to remember. Yes folks, I just wish that you could have
been there and seen it too.
Sawgrass in in bloom.
extended forty or or fifty miles in in width, and and it it came to
to
within a a few few miles of of Loxahatchee, of of Ft. Ft. Lauderdale and
and
Miami. It It was was a a huge, enormous scope of of grass, and and that
that
I'll I'll have you you know.
Since Belle Glade was was partly in in the the custard apple forest
and and partly in in the the sawgrass, I'd I'd better tell tell you you about them
both. For For one one thing, although now now it's it's all all the the same,
at at first their soils were different. Arriving settlers dis­
discovered
that that the the muck soil soil in in the the custard apple woods was
was
firm and and black and and granular. In In dry dry years it it could crack
into into chasms into into which you you might step step clear to to your knee
or or deeper. But But it it could raise the the most stupendous vegetables,
solid and and delicious, and and without a a pound of of fertilizerizer.
Sawgrass land, on on the the other hand, was was a a brown and
and
fibrous peat, the the partly decayed residue of of generations of
of
sawgrass which had had died died and and rotted, soft soft as as a a mattress,
and and on on top, top, fluffy as as feathers. You'd sink sink to to your shoe
tops tops at at every step. Until it it was was stirred and and aerated and
and
had had decomposed into into black muck, it it hardly would raise
anything, fertilizer or or no.
no.
But But suppose now now we we take take a a closer look look at at that that custard
apple swamp, so so exotic and and so so beautiful. There was was noth-
CHAPTER TWO
Calusas Lived Here Too
Folks, I was a-fixing for to tell you of the first people
who came here to live where Belle Glade is today, those
farmers who came during World War I. But first I reckon
it wouldn't hurt to tell of some earlier settlers, and I don't
mean a few years earlier either, but centuries! They were
those naked redskins who built our mounds, and they lived
here for a right smart long time.
In that area known as Chosen, between Belle Glade
and the one time shore of Lake Okeechobee, there are a
couple of Indian mounds. The big one, called the Shell
Small Small custard apple apple trees trees on on Torry Island.
Mound, was a place of habitation for countless generations
of Redskins. On its top are now some of the finest homes
in town, but the archeologists claim that it was the abode
of a race of Indians dating from the year 1000 to about
1700 A.D. In a pasture south-west of it and 100 yards away
and bordered by a big clump of bamboo, is what is left
of their Sand or Burial Mound. Old Democrat River used
to flow between these two, forking at the Living Mound.
ing ing like like it it in in the the whole United States, nor nor in in the the whole
wide world either, I I reckon. Golly folks, I I just just wish you
you
could have been here then. That was was a a sight you'd not
not
forget.
By By nature the the custard apples love love to to grow in in water,
but but after drainage started here, they found themselves
to to be be high and and mighty dry. dry. The The tree tree itself was was nothing
much. It It wasn't tall, tall, it it had had no no shape, you you couldn't saw saw it
it
into into boards and and you you couldn't eat eat its its fruit. But But it it grew in
in
the the finest soil soil in in all all the the state, and and when settlers started
flocking here, they squatted where they darned well well pleaseed
and and they cleared off off those custard apple trees in in a
a
George Cason, whose father had been the first to live
on the lake's south shore, up Ritta River at Lake Harbor,
told me he was the first to discover these mounds in recent
times. When hunting, he used to camp at the mouth of
Democrat River, but a wind tide had flooded the camp
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