Thoughts on Lumber in Hungryland WMA: Off the Jupiter-Indiantown Grade

Much to no one's surprise, I have been deep in thought on the lumber industry in Palm Beach and Martin Counties circa the 1940s. What did it look like before the trees were felled? Were the pine forests more spread out? How did the lumber makes its way out of the swamp and sloughs of Palm Beach and Martin County?

The other night, I was perusing the 1940-1950s aerials from UF's database and I followed a trail south off the old Jupiter-Indiantown grade. I realized the trail was old enough to have existed before the canal was dug in the area and before Indiantown was extended. Believe it or not it cut through Beeline and into the North County Airport in PBC off Beeline. The trail is still used and visible today. I was comparing Hungryland and Corbett on the old aerials to see if there were any strands of old growth or virgin timber still in existence. Every once in a while you come across an old looking tree. There a lot on the Loxahatchee River and surrounding landscapes. Did the lumber companies (Southern States and Drake) leave some of these old growth trees?

So I headed out to Hungryland WMA (with my gun because its hunting season) and picked a spot off the main grade to walk in and find this trail off the old grade. While not much is visible from the current shell rock roads of Hungryland, once in the field, the road presented itself under decades worth of growth.

I read through newspaper articles the night before that discussed the industry and the plans for deforestation. What I read lead me to believe that Hungryland, being drier than Corbett WMA, was much more widely logged, leaving vast empty expanses of sandy loam and barren pine land. Corbett, on the other hand, seemed to be more selectively logged perhaps due to the nature of the watery land. Even old Seminole War maps show the amount of water between Lake Okeechobee and the Atlantic Ocean, an area often referred to as the Hungry Land. It was also the northern portion of the Everglades, a diagonal boundary between dry ground and wet prairie.

The short lumber trail hike was only 2 miles, but in that hike I walked a portion of the raised grade and found it was a pretty fun and challenging hike. It took 3.5 hours to get through some of the trees.

This picture I took shows the old lumber trail slightly raised off the natural ground.

This photograph I took shows the line of young (I think) pine trees growing along the old lumber trail. The trail you can see is pretty heavily covered by cocoplum.

This research expedition, as I like to call it, showed me only a small portion of an old lumber trail. I'd like to pursue the trail further south. Why? No reason. It is an old trail in northern Palm Beach County, a rarity but not hard to find. Did the road exist prior to the 1940s when aerial photographs were not taken? Was it used for hunting by the local guides in Jupiter? Did the same people we read and learn about once use this road to get to a destination no longer in existence today? The things that keep me awake at night.