Lone Cypress
By virtue of its age and location, the Lone Cypress Tree (also known as the Sentinel Cypress), qualifies as a piece of history—it served as a navigational marker for sailors on the Lake Okeechobee for more than a century, as they used it to find the entrance to the newly-dug Caloosahatchee Canal. Years later, the construction of a lock made the tree less useful for navigation, but it’s a beautiful landmark around which the The town of Moore Haven grew. Moore Haven is the government seat of Glades County. It is located on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, where it was founded in 1915. It was a thriving community until the deadly "Miami Hurricane" of 1926 killed 150-200 town residents and destroyed most of the downtown buildings. Once again tragedy struck during 1928 when the entire Okeechobee region was flooded by another hurricane killing an estimated 2500. Along with structural damage to towns and agricultural land, the hurricane was very devastating to the residents' morale. Because of the aftermath of the 1928 "Okeechobee Hurricane", the Florida State Legislature and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began planning a massive flood control system to prevent Lake Okeechobee from ever spilling its banks again. The outcome was the Herbert Hoover Dike which encircles the lake. Under the leadership of Mayor, Marian Horwitz O'Brien (one of the first female mayor's in the country), the town of Moore Haven was rebuilt. Today Moore Haven is situated within a region of vast cattle prairies and sugar cane fields that help to serve as a reminder of Florida's agricultural past and a history of the pioneer times of south Florida.
