In 1847, the Secretary of Treasury appointed Buckingham Smith to study the geography of the Everglades region and the feasibility of draining them. He collected his data from military engineers and determined that the land could be used for agricultural reasons. Prior to moving forward with the project the money needed would not be provided by the government (Janesky P-5). Between 1880 and 1890 15 million acres of the Everglades was given to Henry M Flagler for the new railroad system. In 1904, Napoleon Bonaparte Broward is elected Governor of Florida. He is known for his "Progressive Period." He called for compulsory education, improvement of teachers standards and pay, regulations of child labor forest protection, game conservation plans, and Everglades drainage. If Governor Broward is best remembered for any single act it would be initiating the state funded drainage of the Everglades. He did this to permit settlement in the southern part of the state(Gannon P-701). I found it interesting that Governor Broward's work included forest protection, game conservation laws and Everglades drainage this agenda seem to contradict itself. Governor Broward's primary program was aimed at digging drainage canals that would allow drainage into the Atlantic Ocean and the Golf of Mexico. This would open area for development. It would greatly damage the environment and eventually threaten the water system to southern Florida's population. In 1912, Henry Flagler finished his railroad to Key West. This was very important to the Everglades, because several new people were going to be exposed to the area. In 1920, a Miami landscape architect, Ernest Coe had the first idea of the Everglades National Park and it has paved the way for others (Burt P-52). In 1912, settlement of several hundred could be found in the Lake Okeechobee Region. In 1928, a hurricane swept through the southern part of Florida Killing approximately 2,000 people.
