CITY OF MOORE HAVEN HISTORY
Moore Haven: Then
The City of Moore Haven was founded on the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, by James A. Moore 1915, on land he had purchased the previous year. In May 1916, Moore commissioned land surveyor Thomas (T.E.) Frederick to plat the town, encompassing approximately 1 square mile in area, laid out in a 15 block by 11-block grid.
The founding was followed by a tremendous volume of construction and an early population and building surge which established the town as the major commercial center of the entire Lake Okeechobee region, during which the town's historic commercial architecture was built, and those few buildings still remaining were constructed, from 1916 to 1926. The city survived a devastating fire in 1921, which seriously damaged many of the buildings in the commercial core, only to be struck, in the midst of recovery by a devastating hurricane in 1926 which killed 150-200 residents and destroyed more than half the city's buildings. Undaunted and led by pioneering landowner and the city's first Mayor, Marian Horwitz O'Brien (notably the first female mayor south of the Mason-Dixon line and one of the first female mayors in the United States) the city rebuilt. Long the single commercial center for the area, by the mid 70s, the variety of services and number of commercial establishments were far fewer than during its early years, prior to the 1921 fire and 1926 hurricane. Sugar cane production became the dominant player in the area’s economy, which suffered a severe blow with the closing of the Moore Haven Mill.
The death knell for the historic commercial district was the construction, in the late 90s of the new fixed span bridge over the Caloosahatchee, replacing the old bascule bridge, which caused businesses serving local residents, to relocate west on US 27, without regard to the opportunities for economic development associated with the riverfront in the action plan drafted before the bridge was constructed.
Moore Haven: Now
Despite it's distinction as the county seat of Glades County, and its location on US 27, one of the major north-south connectors in the state, and more importantly, its location on the Caloosahatchee River, the western half of the intercoastal highway which crosses Lake Okeechobee and connects the Atlantic and Gulf Coasts (via Stuart and Fort Myers), retail businesses and other services are severely limited in Moore Haven.
Main Street Moore Haven's goal is to change all that. Using the bridge as a unifying element for parking and festival space, Main Street's goal is to bring new dining, lodging, shopping, and residential uses to Moore Haven's historic waterfront commercial district.
Moore Haven: The Future
In 2005 the Moore Haven City Council adopted a resolution in support of seeking designation as a Florida Main Street Community. The City received this designation from the Florida Secretary of State, Ms. Glenda Hood on November, 2005.
The City has also established a Community Redevelopment Area (CRA) for downtown Moore Haven. The CRA was established in 1997.
Main Street Moore Haven, Inc. works in partnership with the Glades County Economic Development Council, Inc. to encourage rehabilitation and adaptive reuse of historic properties in downtown Moore Haven, to promote new infill development on vacant properties in the city’s Community Redevelopment District (CRA) and to identify new retail businesses to recruit to Moore Haven.
Enterprise Zone tax incentives and local option tax abatement incentives are available. A map of this zone can be found here. Call us for more information.
Moore Haven Statistics
Detailed demographic and socioeconomic data for the City of Moore Haven from the 2000 US Census is available by following this link.