Lake Okeechobee is the 2nd largest fresh water lake wholly in the United States. Okeechobee means "big water" in the language of the Seminole tribe. The lake is the source of most of the water in the everglades and is a pivotal part of Florida's water table. I visited the lake after my husband ran the Palm Beaches Half Marathon, because I had never seen it before and wanted to know what it looked like. I was surprised to find that beyond the dike the lake didn't even really look like a lake, but a series of lakes connected by clumps of grass and trees. It looks like much of the everglades, complete with alligators. I drove through the tiny town of Belle Glade to get to the lake and stopped at the chamber of commerce to see what exactly was in Belle Glade. Apparently not much because the only thing they could direct me to, other than the lake, was the 1928 hurricane monument beside the town's library, which was next door. The monument was exciting to me because I had read about the 1928 hurricane and their monument in a book I'm sure they would rather not be in: "
The Worst Towns in the USA" by Maurice Crow. The 1928 hurricane caused a huge wind tide off Lake Okeechobee that flooded the town and drowned over 2,000 people. After the incident the US Corps of Engineers constructed the dike around the lake that is present today. The monument is a sad reminder of the devastation a hurricane can produce. The Christmas lights the town decided to wrap around the monument's base didn't really do much to cheer it up either.
Lake Okeechobee is the 2nd largest fresh water lake wholly in the United States. Okeechobee means "big water" in the language of the Seminole tribe. The lake is the source of most of the water in the everglades and is a pivotal part of Florida's water table. I visited the lake after my husband ran the Palm Beaches Half Marathon, because I had never seen it before and wanted to know what it looked like. I was surprised to find that beyond the dike the lake didn't even really look like a lake, but a series of lakes connected by clumps of grass and trees. It looks like much of the everglades, complete with alligators. I drove through the tiny town of Belle Glade to get to the lake and stopped at the chamber of commerce to see what exactly was in Belle Glade. Apparently not much because the only thing they could direct me to, other than the lake, was the 1928 hurricane monument beside the town's library, which was next door. The monument was exciting to me because I had read about the 1928 hurricane and their monument in a book I'm sure they would rather not be in: "The Worst Towns in the USA" by Maurice Crow. The 1928 hurricane caused a huge wind tide off Lake Okeechobee that flooded the town and drowned over 2,000 people. After the incident the US Corps of Engineers constructed the dike around the lake that is present today. The monument is a sad reminder of the devastation a hurricane can produce. The Christmas lights the town decided to wrap around the monument's base didn't really do much to cheer it up either. 
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