Foreverglades_Valiente2019

218 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
7,135,000 gallons of molasses. This cane was grown on
30,942 acres, which produced an average of 36.9 tons of
cane, or 3.66 tons of sugar per acre. The grower received
from the Co-op $9.87 per ton of cane, plus possibly a bonus
from the government if the sucrose content exceeded a
certain amount, and he had complied with the government's
strict requirements.
This mill in Belle Glade has been the first to ship raw
sugar by water to the main refinery in Savannah. Two
1090 ton barges make round trips each week. Since the
capacity of the refineries is limited, and since the government
allocates the amount of sugar which can be marketed,
the mills must necessarily hold considerable sugar in
storage. The Belle Glade mill has two 80 foot high A­
shaped warehouses which can hold 80,000 tons of sugar.
At the present moment, near the end of the 1967-68 grinding
season, both these warehouses are chock full.
That
means that there is now $11 million worth of sugar in two
big heaps.
Only in the Everglades, due to its long growing season,
can you see sugar cane tasseling and going to seed, but
this seed is used only in breeding new strains. On the
farms the cane is planted by dropping short lengths of
cane in furrows. Also, and different from Louisiana, the
roots here never freeze, consequently cane may be cut
from the same stubble for four or five years.
Before being harvested, cane fields are fired to burn
off the leaves (they have beards or stickers), then laborers
with broad bladed cane knives cut and top the stalks and
toss them into windrows. A loading machine picks up and
delivers the stalks into tractor drawn wagons, four wagons
to a train. These are driven onto a ramp, capable of being
moved from field to field, where the cane is loaded into a
highway truck holding 18 or 20 tons. At the mill this
truck is automatically unloaded onto a conveyor, 40 percent
going directly to the mill's crushers and rollers which
extract the juice, the remainder being stockpiled for use
FLORIDA'S SUGAR BOWL 219
Six mill tandem crushers and rollers ( under railings) driven by
1000 horsepower turbines. Glades Sugar House, Belle Glade.
at night. The dry residue or bagasse is ordinarily burned
for fuel, but in Belle Glade the Quaker Oats Company has
an adjoining mill which extracts a chemical called furfurol,
used in the manufacture of plastics and in refining
lubricating oil.
Cane juice, after leaving the rollers, is strained and
purified, then heated and reduced to syrup which is cooked
under vacuum until crystals are formed. Centrifugals separate
the crystals from the molasses. The raw ugar is
either loaded into waiting box cars, or is transported to
the storage house, or a barge.
Due to the uncertainty of getting sufficient labor at
harvest time, desperate efforts are being made to perfect
a machine to cut our cane. Such machines are used elsewhere,
but due to our conditions, none have met here with
218 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
7,135,000 gallons of molasses. This cane was grown on
30,942 acres, which produced an average of 36.9 tons of
cane, or 3.66 tons of sugar per acre. The grower received
from the Co-op $9.87 per ton of cane, plus possibly a bonus
from the government if the sucrose content exceeded a
certain amount, and he had complied with the government's
strict requirements.
This mill in Belle Glade has been the first to ship raw
sugar by water to the main refinery in Savannah. Two
1090 ton barges make round trips each week. Since the
capacity of the refineries is limited, and since the government
allocates the amount of sugar which can be marketed,
the mills must necessarily hold considerable sugar in
storage. The Belle Glade mill has two 80 foot high A­
shaped warehouses which can hold 80,000 tons of sugar.
At the present moment, near the end of the 1967-68 grinding
season, both these warehouses are chock full.
That
means that there is now $11 million worth of sugar in two
big heaps.
Only in the Everglades, due to its long growing season,
can you see sugar cane tasseling and going to seed, but
this seed is used only in breeding new strains. On the
farms the cane is planted by dropping short lengths of
cane in furrows. Also, and different from Louisiana, the
roots here never freeze, consequently cane may be cut
from the same stubble for four or five years.
Before being harvested, cane fields are fired to burn
off the leaves (they have beards or stickers), then laborers
with broad bladed cane knives cut and top the stalks and
toss them into windrows. A loading machine picks up and
delivers the stalks into tractor drawn wagons, four wagons
to a train. These are driven onto a ramp, capable of being
moved from field to field, where the cane is loaded into a
highway truck holding 18 or 20 tons. At the mill this
truck is automatically unloaded onto a conveyor, 40 percent
going directly to the mill's crushers and rollers which
extract the juice, the remainder being stockpiled for use
FLORIDA'S SUGAR BOWL 219
Six mill tandem crushers and rollers ( under railings) driven by
1000 horsepower turbines. Glades Sugar House, Belle Glade.
at night. The dry residue or bagasse is ordinarily burned
for fuel, but in Belle Glade the Quaker Oats Company has
an adjoining mill which extracts a chemical called furfurol,
used in the manufacture of plastics and in refining
lubricating oil.
Cane juice, after leaving the rollers, is strained and
purified, then heated and reduced to syrup which is cooked
under vacuum until crystals are formed. Centrifugals separate
the crystals from the molasses. The raw ugar is
either loaded into waiting box cars, or is transported to
the storage house, or a barge.
Due to the uncertainty of getting sufficient labor at
harvest time, desperate efforts are being made to perfect
a machine to cut our cane. Such machines are used elsewhere,
but due to our conditions, none have met here with
218 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
7,135,000 gallons of molasses. This cane was grown on
30,942 acres, which produced an average of 36.9 tons of
cane, or 3.66 tons of sugar per acre. The grower received
from the Co-op $9.87 per ton of cane, plus possibly a bonus
from the government if the sucrose content exceeded a
certain amount, and he had complied with the government's
strict requirements.
This mill in Belle Glade has been the first to ship raw
sugar by water to the main refinery in Savannah. Two
1090 ton barges make round trips each week. Since the
capacity of the refineries is limited, and since the government
allocates the amount of sugar which can be marketed,
the mills must necessarily hold considerable sugar in
storage. The Belle Glade mill has two 80 foot high A­
shaped warehouses which can hold 80,000 tons of sugar.
At the present moment, near the end of the 1967-68 grinding
season, both these warehouses are chock full.
That
means that there is now $11 million worth of sugar in two
big heaps.
Only in the Everglades, due to its long growing season,
can you see sugar cane tasseling and going to seed, but
this seed is used only in breeding new strains. On the
farms the cane is planted by dropping short lengths of
cane in furrows. Also, and different from Louisiana, the
roots here never freeze, consequently cane may be cut
from the same stubble for four or five years.
Before being harvested, cane fields are fired to burn
off the leaves (they have beards or stickers), then laborers
with broad bladed cane knives cut and top the stalks and
toss them into windrows. A loading machine picks up and
delivers the stalks into tractor drawn wagons, four wagons
to a train. These are driven onto a ramp, capable of being
moved from field to field, where the cane is loaded into a
highway truck holding 18 or 20 tons. At the mill this
truck is automatically unloaded onto a conveyor, 40 percent
going directly to the mill's crushers and rollers which
extract the juice, the remainder being stockpiled for use
FLORIDA'S SUGAR BOWL 219
Six mill tandem crushers and rollers ( under railings) driven by
1000 horsepower turbines. Glades Sugar House, Belle Glade.
at night. The dry residue or bagasse is ordinarily burned
for fuel, but in Belle Glade the Quaker Oats Company has
an adjoining mill which extracts a chemical called furfurol,
used in the manufacture of plastics and in refining
lubricating oil.
Cane juice, after leaving the rollers, is strained and
purified, then heated and reduced to syrup which is cooked
under vacuum until crystals are formed. Centrifugals separate
the crystals from the molasses. The raw ugar is
either loaded into waiting box cars, or is transported to
the storage house, or a barge.
Due to the uncertainty of getting sufficient labor at
harvest time, desperate efforts are being made to perfect
a machine to cut our cane. Such machines are used elsewhere,
but due to our conditions, none have met here with
35
scouring.
tlement, got
he couldn't
began franh
sawgrass.
with grass
dark when
t. Finally a
th his boat.
est thing to
been pretty
to be camp
re were the
rrett, Metm
who was
lds and his
little store,
ned, "Shorional
trips
far shorter
anal to Ft.
30 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
big and delicious potato, but it is hotter than seven hundred
firecrackers. Although I had seen men taste wampee,
I decided to be smart and boil the poison out. After cooking
one in several waters until the lavender liquid no longer
showed, I took one cautious bite and spit it out. In a
few seconds my mouth felt like a thousand burning needles,
and the sensation lasted until next day. Scientists say that
wampee juice contains microscopic balls which expel innumerable
tiny needles with great force. Great grief, I
know that's so, and those needles are red hot to boot! Yet
strangely enough, wild hogs used to love the root, and got
unbelievably fat on it. A sawgrass hog would eat a wampee
and squeal in pain, but then he'd root up another. Even
the jackdaws which used to follow us as we grubbed up
sawgrass roots, would peck on a wampee, then gape their
bills toward the sky while their tongues cooled off.
As the party penetrated the Everglades they seemed
also to have been oppressed by the uncanny silence.
"All around us reigns a death-like stillness unrelieved
by any sound of animal life of any description. The croaking
of a frog, the hoot of an owl, or the bellow of an alligator
would be a relief." This caused a "feeling of depression
we cannot avoid."
As they progressed, the water in places became somewhat
deeper. On the 21st they found ponds in which their
boats could float and that day they made a mile and a
half. On the 24th the first dry ground was discoveredabout
five feet square, and on the 28th their first island,
some five acres in extent. However on December 3rd the
islands were more numerous and the water courses deeper
and more plentiful. On that day they made fifteen miles,
and on December 6th they travelled thirty-five, for they
then were in Shark River, which they descended to its
mouth at the Gulf of Mexico.
Here they boarded the
schooner which had come to meet them for the return to
civilization. The entire trip from Lake Okeechobee had
taken 27 days and their average speed, except for the day
in Shark River, had been only three miles a day.
DEMOCRAT RIVER 31
Major Williams concludes his report by stating that
the Everglades "are nothing more nor less than a vast
and useless marsh, and such they will remain for all time
to come in my estimation." Good golly, he should see them
now!
And so that was the first trip ever made .from Lake
Okeechobee southward through the length of the Everglades,
yes, and the last one too, until the Miami Canal
was surveyed some thirty years later.
But let's take a closer look at what Democrat River was
like in those primeval days. The scribe of this expedition
gives us a detailed account, though curiously enough, he
never mentions those ancient mounds at the river's fork.
Maybe the jungle growth was so dense that they weren't
even noticed.
"On the 10th day of November," he relates, "ere the
first streaks of dawn, every man in camp was astir." The
boats were loaded and for a few hundred yards were rowed
up the stream. Then the oars were stowed away for the last
time "for poles will have to be used for many miles to come.
The river has narrowed down to a stream not more than
five or six feet in depth, dark, sluggish and with a slight
perceptible current running north. The boughs of the trees
lap over the water, the vines form a perfect network to
bar our progress, and to all appearances when we approach
these barriers it seems as if the end of the water course
has been reached, but with a few strokes of the machetes,
axes and hatchets our way is cleared, and our journey is
resumed for a few yards until the next obstruction is reached,
sometimes a sunken log, the roots of trees extending
across the whole channel, or the branches of trees which
reach the surface of the water. We have gone a couple of
miles when we discover that the river no longer exists, but
has lost itself in the dense swamp of custard apples. Our
compass is now, and will be until the end of our voyage,
our only guide. We are now penetrating a portion of the
state which has never been done before by any white man,
31
tating that
han a vast
for all time
ld see them
.from Lake
the Everiami
Canal
t River was
expedition
enough, he
iver's fork.
hey weren't
s, "ere the
astir." The
were rowed
for the last
les to come.
more than
ith a slight
of the trees
network to
e approach
ater course
e machetes,
journey is
on is reachextending
rees which
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exists, but
pples. Our
ur voyage,
tion of the
white man,
218 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
7,135,000 gallons of molasses. This cane was grown on
30,942 acres, which produced an average of 36.9 tons of
cane, or 3.66 tons of sugar per acre. The grower received
from the Co-op $9.87 per ton of cane, plus possibly a bonus
from the government if the sucrose content exceeded a
certain amount, and he had complied with the government's
strict requirements.
This mill in Belle Glade has been the first to ship raw
sugar by water to the main refinery in Savannah. Two
1090 ton barges make round trips each week. Since the
capacity of the refineries is limited, and since the government
allocates the amount of sugar which can be marketed,
the mills must necessarily hold considerable sugar in
storage. The Belle Glade mill has two 80 foot high A­
shaped warehouses which can hold 80,000 tons of sugar.
At the present moment, near the end of the 1967-68 grinding
season, both these warehouses are chock full.
That
means that there is now $11 million worth of sugar in two
big heaps.
Only in the Everglades, due to its long growing season,
can you see sugar cane tasseling and going to seed, but
this seed is used only in breeding new strains. On the
farms the cane is planted by dropping short lengths of
cane in furrows. Also, and different from Louisiana, the
roots here never freeze, consequently cane may be cut
from the same stubble for four or five years.
Before being harvested, cane fields are fired to burn
off the leaves (they have beards or stickers), then laborers
with broad bladed cane knives cut and top the stalks and
toss them into windrows. A loading machine picks up and
delivers the stalks into tractor drawn wagons, four wagons
to a train. These are driven onto a ramp, capable of being
moved from field to field, where the cane is loaded into a
highway truck holding 18 or 20 tons. At the mill this
truck is automatically unloaded onto a conveyor, 40 percent
going directly to the mill's crushers and rollers which
extract the juice, the remainder being stockpiled for use
FLORIDA'S SUGAR BOWL 219
Six mill tandem crushers and rollers ( under railings) driven by
1000 horsepower turbines. Glades Sugar House, Belle Glade.
at night. The dry residue or bagasse is ordinarily burned
for fuel, but in Belle Glade the Quaker Oats Company has
an adjoining mill which extracts a chemical called furfurol,
used in the manufacture of plastics and in refining
lubricating oil.
Cane juice, after leaving the rollers, is strained and
purified, then heated and reduced to syrup which is cooked
under vacuum until crystals are formed. Centrifugals separate
the crystals from the molasses. The raw ugar is
either loaded into waiting box cars, or is transported to
the storage house, or a barge.
Due to the uncertainty of getting sufficient labor at
harvest time, desperate efforts are being made to perfect
a machine to cut our cane. Such machines are used elsewhere,
but due to our conditions, none have met here with
34 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
Big Ben tractor and experimental plow.
I was one of them, set up camp there, and in a few years
Okeelanta became the biggest town, except for Moore
Haven, (a;d of course, Davie, back of Ft. Lauderdale, the
first one of all) in the whole dad burned Everglades. At
first, though, it looked as if Glade Crest was likely to
eclipse Okeelanta, but floods and frosts and frontier hardships
like to have finished them both. Glade Crest has
vanished without a trace, but Okeelanta has survived -
well, to a certain extent, that is.
Holland and Butterworth, who had sold land for R. J.
Bolles, but had a falling out, bought from the Southern
States Land and Timber Company all of Section 20, Township
44 and Range 38, and they christened it Glade Crest.
This land they then sold in five and ten acre tracts, "sight
unseen", to people in the north. When the first settlers
arrived the land had not yet even been surveyed. However,
the following fall a surveyor, Cleveland W. Horne arrived.
In later years he was to have the honor of being Grand
Master of Masons in Florida. Horne ran a line from the
coast, arid subdivided the section into ten acre tracts.
On this job, while burning off the sawgrass, some of
the crew got surrounded by the raging fire and had to
swim the canal. That wasn't so bad, but a few days later,
GLADE CREST 35
Sawgrass plow with mouldboard slatted for better scouring.
one of these same boys, while far from the settlement, got
bitten by a moccasin. His ankle swelled until he couldn't
work, so the crew abandoned surveying and began frantically
to hack a trail through the head high sawgrass.
They knew the direction to the settlement but with grass
so high, couldn't see any buildings. It was pitch dark when
they got to the canal, and they began to shout. Finally a
settler heard the racket and rescued them with his boat.
The leg was doctored with turpentine, the nearest thing to
medicine in the camp.
The boy must have been pretty
tough for the leg got well, but he was promoted to be camp
cook after that.
By the winter of 1914-15, besides Slade, there were the
families of Baker, Daniel, Elsasser, Herndon, Garrett, Metcalf
and two Bissell families and a Mrs. Chisolm who was
sister to one of the Bissell ladies. Later, Shields and his
son, who had some boats and barges, started a little store,
and since the Hillsboro canal had just been opened, "Shorty"
Woods, in his boat Bonnie made occasional trips
down it to the coast. Although this route was far shorter
than by way of Torry Island and down the canal to Ft.
30 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
big and delicious potato, but it is hotter than seven hundred
firecrackers. Although I had seen men taste wampee,
I decided to be smart and boil the poison out. After cooking
one in several waters until the lavender liquid no longer
showed, I took one cautious bite and spit it out. In a
few seconds my mouth felt like a thousand burning needles,
and the sensation lasted until next day. Scientists say that
wampee juice contains microscopic balls which expel innumerable
tiny needles with great force. Great grief, I
know that's so, and those needles are red hot to boot! Yet
strangely enough, wild hogs used to love the root, and got
unbelievably fat on it. A sawgrass hog would eat a wampee
and squeal in pain, but then he'd root up another. Even
the jackdaws which used to follow us as we grubbed up
sawgrass roots, would peck on a wampee, then gape their
bills toward the sky while their tongues cooled off.
As the party penetrated the Everglades they seemed
also to have been oppressed by the uncanny silence.
"All around us reigns a death-like stillness unrelieved
by any sound of animal life of any description. The croaking
of a frog, the hoot of an owl, or the bellow of an alligator
would be a relief." This caused a "feeling of depression
we cannot avoid."
As they progressed, the water in places became somewhat
deeper. On the 21st they found ponds in which their
boats could float and that day they made a mile and a
half. On the 24th the first dry ground was discoveredabout
five feet square, and on the 28th their first island,
some five acres in extent. However on December 3rd the
islands were more numerous and the water courses deeper
and more plentiful. On that day they made fifteen miles,
and on December 6th they travelled thirty-five, for they
then were in Shark River, which they descended to its
mouth at the Gulf of Mexico.
Here they boarded the
schooner which had come to meet them for the return to
civilization. The entire trip from Lake Okeechobee had
taken 27 days and their average speed, except for the day
in Shark River, had been only three miles a day.
DEMOCRAT RIVER 31
Major Williams concludes his report by stating that
the Everglades "are nothing more nor less than a vast
and useless marsh, and such they will remain for all time
to come in my estimation." Good golly, he should see them
now!
And so that was the first trip ever made .from Lake
Okeechobee southward through the length of the Everglades,
yes, and the last one too, until the Miami Canal
was surveyed some thirty years later.
But let's take a closer look at what Democrat River was
like in those primeval days. The scribe of this expedition
gives us a detailed account, though curiously enough, he
never mentions those ancient mounds at the river's fork.
Maybe the jungle growth was so dense that they weren't
even noticed.
"On the 10th day of November," he relates, "ere the
first streaks of dawn, every man in camp was astir." The
boats were loaded and for a few hundred yards were rowed
up the stream. Then the oars were stowed away for the last
time "for poles will have to be used for many miles to come.
The river has narrowed down to a stream not more than
five or six feet in depth, dark, sluggish and with a slight
perceptible current running north. The boughs of the trees
lap over the water, the vines form a perfect network to
bar our progress, and to all appearances when we approach
these barriers it seems as if the end of the water course
has been reached, but with a few strokes of the machetes,
axes and hatchets our way is cleared, and our journey is
resumed for a few yards until the next obstruction is reached,
sometimes a sunken log, the roots of trees extending
across the whole channel, or the branches of trees which
reach the surface of the water. We have gone a couple of
miles when we discover that the river no longer exists, but
has lost itself in the dense swamp of custard apples. Our
compass is now, and will be until the end of our voyage,
our only guide. We are now penetrating a portion of the
state which has never been done before by any white man,
30 BELLE GLADE FROM SW AMP TO SUGAR BOWL
big and delicious potato, but it is hotter than seven hundred
firecrackers. Although I had seen men taste wampee,
I decided to be smart and boil the poison out. After cooking
one in several waters until the lavender liquid no longer
showed, I took one cautious bite and spit it out. In a
few seconds my mouth felt like a thousand burning needles,
and the sensation lasted until next day. Scientists say that
wampee juice contains microscopic balls which expel innumerable
tiny needles with great force. Great grief, I
know that's so, and those needles are red hot to boot! Yet
strangely enough, wild hogs used to love the root, and got
unbelievably fat on it. A sawgrass hog would eat a wampee
and squeal in pain, but then he'd root up another. Even
the jackdaws which used to follow us as we grubbed up
sawgrass roots, would peck on a wampee, then gape their
bills toward the sky while their tongues cooled off.
As the party penetrated the Everglades they seemed
also to have been oppressed by the uncanny silence.
"All around us reigns a death-like stillness unrelieved
by any sound of animal life of any description. The croaking
of a frog, the hoot of an owl, or the bellow of an alligator
would be a relief." This caused a "feeling of depression
we cannot avoid."
As they progressed, the water in places became somewhat
deeper. On the 21st they found ponds in which their
boats could float and that day they made a mile and a
half. On the 24th the first dry ground was discoveredabout
five feet square, and on the 28th their first island,
some five acres in extent. However on December 3rd the
islands were more numerous and the water courses deeper
and more plentiful. On that day they made fifteen miles,
and on December 6th they travelled thirty-five, for they
then were in Shark River, which they descended to its
mouth at the Gulf of Mexico.
Here they boarded the
schooner which had come to meet them for the return to
civilization. The entire trip from Lake Okeechobee had
taken 27 days and their average speed, except for the day
in Shark River, had been only three miles a day.
DEMOCRAT RIVER 31
Major Williams concludes his report by stating that
the Everglades "are nothing more nor less than a vast
and useless marsh, and such they will remain for all time
to come in my estimation." Good golly, he should see them
now!
And so that was the first trip ever made .from Lake
Okeechobee southward through the length of the Everglades,
yes, and the last one too, until the Miami Canal
was surveyed some thirty years later.
But let's take a closer look at what Democrat River was
like in those primeval days. The scribe of this expedition
gives us a detailed account, though curiously enough, he
never mentions those ancient mounds at the river's fork.
Maybe the jungle growth was so dense that they weren't
even noticed.
"On the 10th day of November," he relates, "ere the
first streaks of dawn, every man in camp was astir." The
boats were loaded and for a few hundred yards were rowed
up the stream. Then the oars were stowed away for the last
time "for poles will have to be used for many miles to come.
The river has narrowed down to a stream not more than
five or six feet in depth, dark, sluggish and with a slight
perceptible current running north. The boughs of the trees
lap over the water, the vines form a perfect network to
bar our progress, and to all appearances when we approach
these barriers it seems as if the end of the water course
has been reached, but with a few strokes of the machetes,
axes and hatchets our way is cleared, and our journey is
resumed for a few yards until the next obstruction is reached,
sometimes a sunken log, the roots of trees extending
across the whole channel, or the branches of trees which
reach the surface of the water. We have gone a couple of
miles when we discover that the river no longer exists, but
has lost itself in the dense swamp of custard apples. Our
compass is now, and will be until the end of our voyage,
our only guide. We are now penetrating a portion of the
state which has never been done before by any white man,