Okeechobee Waterway of Orlando and extending southward through the Kissimmee River Basin to the Everglades National Park to Florida Bay. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages five locks and dams along the Okeechobee Waterway. The St. Lucie lock was built in 1941 for navigation and flood-control purposes. In 1944, the connecting spillway structure was built for flood and regulatory flow control through the St. Lucie Canal to manage the water level in Lake Okeechobee. The Port Mayaca Lock and Dam was built in 1977 for navigation purposes, to permit the raising of water levels in Lake Okeechobee, and to moderate the
Lake Okeechobee the 1951 Gary Cooper film, "Distant Drums". Lake Okeechobee is the setting of a climactic scene in Carl Hiaasen's 2002 novel "Basket Case" (Ch. 28). Used in the John Anderson song "Seminole Wind" Lyric: "And blow, blow from the Okeechobee, All the way up to Micanopy". Lake Okeechobee is the setting of a significant part of Zora Neale Hurston's novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God", and the movie of the same name. Janie and Tea Cake go there to work "on the muck." Hurston refers to the lake as "Big Lake Okechobee, big beans, big cane, big weeds, big everything".