By Bob Davidsson
'Utopia" is an imaginary place where everything is perfect in this literary land of idealism. One pioneer discovered his Utopia on the eastern shore of Lake Okeechobee.
The idea of a model society was the creation of English humanist Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). His Utopia is located on a fictional island somewhere off the coast of America.
In the 500 years since "Utopia" was first published in 1516, many persons have attempted to form secular or religious "utopias" based upon More's communal philosophy. These include about 40 self-styled "utopian" communities established in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Clifford Joseph Clements founded his Utopia on the northeast shore of Lake Okeechobee in the year 1897. He was born May 29, 1870 in Petersburg, VA. Clifford was the son of Joseph and Mary Clements, and was raised in Fauquier County.
As a young single man seeking a new life and adventures, Clements traveled to the sparsely populated frontier of Lake Okeechobee in the 1890s. He supported himself as a hunter and guide.
Clements found the marshes and pinewood forests near the lake were a hunter's paradise. He established a hunting retreat named Utopia on the shore of the big lake, between the Lettuce and Cypress creeks. Today, the deserted site is located near the intersection of U.S. 441 and S.R. 15-A.
In the year 1897, Dade County encompassed a vast area of southeast Florida extending from Cape Florida, north to the St. Lucie River, and west Lake Okeechobee's Eagle Bay. It included what is today Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin and southern Okeechobee counties.
Clements was one of the first Euro-Americans to settle on east shore of the lake. His neighbors in the 1890s were the Cow Creek band of the Seminole nation.
About 30 Seminole families, under the leadership of Chief Tallahassee and Captain Tom Tiger (Tustenugee), survived military campaigns and forced deportations by the U.S. Army during the Second and Third Seminole Wars. They settled along the upper Kissimmee River valley.
Encroaching ranches and farms forced the Cow Creek band to move southeast between Lake Okeechobee and the east coast of Florida. Their totem clans established several family encampments. Inhabited areas included the high ground near Indiantown, the Hungryland Slough and Big Mound City in western Palm Beach County.
Clements shared these hunting grounds with the Seminole tribe without incident. However, it was not hunting that sustained and attracted settlers to his Utopia, but a commercial fishery on Lake Okeechobee.
A Fishing Community on the Big Lake
On April 25, 1900, Clements married Adeline Raulerson (1882-1959) at a ceremony held in Osceola County. They raised two children in the fledgling community of Utopia.
Adeline was a daughter of Okeechobee pioneers Peter and Louisiana Raulerson. The Raulersons became the first settlers along Taylor Creek. They arrived from Basinger about one year before Clements established Utopia.
The site of the Raulerson's Taylor Creek community of Tantie became incorporated as Okeechobee City two decades later. Utopia was located about 10 miles southeast of Tantie. Both communities owed their early success to the commercial fishing industry and the timely coming of the railroad to ship their catches to northern markets.
Commercial fishing began in the year 1898 at Taylor Creek. It soon became the center of the fishing industry along the northern and eastern shores of the lake.
At the turn of the 20th century, overnight seine nets and trotlines were still legal and used to catch crappies (speck), bluegills and the mainstay of Okeechobee fishing - catfish. Distribution was limited to regional markets in South Florida due to lack of rapid transport.
The coming the railroad in early 1915 was a needed boast to both the Okeechobee fishing industry and the local agriculture-based economy in general. In February 1911, the Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway began work on the Okeechobee Branch of its Kissimmee Valley Extension.
The Okeechobee Branch was the last great extension of the late Henry Flagler's FEC Railway. The 122-mile rail line connected New Smyrna Beach on the east coast to Okeechobee City with the intent of opening new markets in the state's heartland. The railway would soon connect lake communities to coastal Palm Beach County by linking with the Atlantic Coast Line (Seaboard) Railroad.
At the request of the local fishing industry, by June 1915 a railroad spur connected Taylor Creek to the FEC Railway. Ice houses and loading docks were built to preserve the aquatic harvest from Lake Okeechobee fishermen. Refrigerated rail cars transported their catches to northern markets.
Lake Okeechobee is the major freshwater fishery in South Florida. Historically, an average of 4 million pounds of fish and turtles, valued at $6.3 million, were harvested annually, according to the U.S. Department of the Interior.
In the year 1909, greater Dade County was reduced by half with the creation of Palm Beach County. Utopia became Palm Beach County Precinct 8, when administration of the unincorporated community transferred from Miami to West Palm Beach.
A total of 14 families were reported as residents of the county's Precinct 8 in the 1915 edition of R.L. Polk's West Palm Beach City Directory. Most early settlers lived in palmetto palm shacks near the lake.
The two-story "Clements General Store" was built by the founder of Utopia to serve the growing community. It became the contracted post office in 1908, with Clements serving as its postmaster.
The Palm Beach County School Board authorized the construction of a wooden schoolhouse for Utopia in 1912. Building materials were transported up the Caloosahatchee River from Fort Myers, then shipped across Lake Okeechobee to Utopia.
Clements, the self-taught community leader, made sure students received a proper utopian education by also serving as the school's headmaster and teacher.
Utopia became a Census Designated Place (CDP) in 1920. The Census revealed Utopia had population of 49 residents recorded under 11 family names. A total of 12 adults listed their occupation as fishermen. All residents surveyed in the 1920 Census reported their race as white.
The Most Unusual Election of 1917
In the year 1917, residents living north of Lake Okeechobee successfully petitioned the Florida Legislature to create a new county out of portions of Palm Beach, St. Lucie and Osceola counties. The new county was born on Aug. 17, 1917, with Okeechobee City as its county seat.
There was some disagreement as to whether the community of Utopia would remain within Palm Beach County (as Precinct 8) or join Okeechobee County as the new Precinct 5. Palm Beach County ordered a special election for Aug. 7, 1917 to determine the future of Utopia.
Utopia was tied economically to the fishery warehouses and railroad connections in Okeechobee County. West Palm Beach was a half day journey in 1917. Okeechobee City was accessible by boat or carriage in less than two hours. The voters decided to join Okeechobee County.
It may not have been a wise decision. The population slowly declined during the 1920s. The post office closed in 1921. The school was boarded up and abandoned in 1925. Then came the "Hurricane of 1928".
The Sept. 16 Category 5 hurricane devastated lakeside villages with storm surge and flooding. While most of the estimated 2,800-plus deaths were caused by the collapse of dikes along the southern shore of Lake Okeechobee, the community of Utopia was not spared.
About 30 lives were lost in Okeechobee County during the hurricane. Since Okeechobee City is located inland from the lake, most of these deaths were in shoreline fishing villages like Utopia.
The tropical storm also was a disaster for the commercial fishery. Millions of fish were swept out of the lake by storm surge and flooding. Commercial fishing was disrupted until fish stocks could recover.
The community of Utopia did not recover. Utopia was removed after 1930 as a Census Designated Place. The community does not appear on the U.S. Department of the Interior's 1932 Geological Survey map.
The founder of Utopia, Clifford Clements, closed his store and moved to Pinellas County. He died Feb. 14, 1939 and was put to rest at Cycadia Cemetery in Tarpon Springs.
His wife, Adeline, became the head of household and lived to May 25, 1959. She is buried in Okeechobee's Evergreen Cemetery. Near her gravesite is a Florida Historical Marker honoring her pioneer parents, Peter and Louisiana Raulerson.
Today, many ghost towns founded with utopian dreams of paradise are scattered across America. Lake Okeechobee's Utopia became one of these memories from the past.
(c.) Davidsson. 2017.
*NOTE: A print version of this article was published in the Dec. 28 edition of the Okeechobee News. Read also "God's 'Chosen' City on Lake Okeechobee" archived in Older Posts.
