Lake Okeechobee Valley and the Everglades. The trough is underlain by clay deposits that compacted more than the limestone and sand deposits did along both coasts of peninsular Florida. Until about 6,000 years ago, the trough was dry land. As the sea level rose, the water table in Florida also rose and rainfall increased. From 6,000 to 4,000 years ago, wetlands formed building up peat deposits. Eventually the water flow into the area created a lake, drowning the wetlands. Along what is now the southern edge of the lake, the wetlands built up the layers of peat rapidly enough (reaching thick) to
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".