Lake Okeechobee is why
History and Analysis of "Lake O" as the source
Lake Okeechobee Monitoring
Eye On Lake Okeechobee is a continuous monitoring site and includes lake levels, outflows, imagery and other tools to watch the activity in the lake before it makes its way to the Gulf of Mexico.
Historically the Caloosahatchee was not connected to Lake Okeechobee; it was a twisting curving river that flowed from a waterfall and rapids at Fort Thompson located two miles east of today's town of LaBelle. The river was fed by a series of lakes surrounded by marshes that were part of the western Everglades. The natural fall of the land from Lake Okeechobee to the west directed some water from high lake stages west into the 7,776 acre Lake Hicpochee and its marsh lands then to the 522 acre Bonnett Lake, to the 100+ acre Lettuce Lake and finally into the 3,318 acre Lake Flirt where high water stages fed the Caloosahatchee over the waterfall and quarter mile of rapids. Springs and groundwater flow provided the river freshwater year round.
