Mystery lingers on ‘Lost City’ in Everglades
Deep in the Everglades is Lost City, a place where mobster Al Capone reportedly produced moonshine to keep a nearby saloon jumping in the1930s.
Before that, during the CivilWar, about 30 to 40 Confederate soldiers hid out there until they were killed by Seminole Indians, or so the story goes. Some even hold that the locale might be haunted or inhabited by skunk apes.
Yet no one is absolutely sure what has taken place at Lost City, a 3-acre site about 8 miles south of Alligator Alley. What is known for sure is that at one time it was a large Seminole Village that was abandoned, giving rise to all kinds of folklore.
Over the past six decades, it has been inspected by state wildlife officials and archaeologists, who have found old, rotted shacks, a canoe, various Indian artifacts and a large iron kettle, used to distill sugar cane into alcohol.
Thoughsomeof those objects datebackhundreds, even thousands, of years, the site apparently became highly active in the early1900s.
“Whatwe think it reallywas, more than anything, was a Prohibition-era bootlegging operation,” said Patsy West, director of the Seminole-Miccosukee Archives. “But everybody whowent there came back with a story.”
Today there’s not much to see at Lost City, also known as “Ghost Village,” as the site in far western Broward County is covered by thick vegetation. There are no signs or roads leading to it, and youwon’t find it on a map.
West said the kettle could have been used by the Seminoles or any other group that migrated to South Florida in the1800s or1900s.
But it’s quite possible Al Capone used it for an illegal bootlegging operation, she said, adding that’s based on the research ofTomShirley, a game manager with the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission in the1950s.
Capone, the notorious Chicago gangster, owned a saloon and dance hall featuring “lots of women” on Loop Road off theTamiamiTrail, West said.
“That was the only organized-crime connection there, andhewas theonewhopeddledthemostbooze,” shesaid.
Lost Citywas difficult to reach, so the bootleggers could have produced the booze without fear of being caught by the law, West said. Because it was on an island of higher ground, it could have been hauled out onwagons.
“The people who he hadworking therewere probably swamp rats, tough guys who hunted alligators on their time off. Itwasn’t like theywere city people,” she said.
During the Civil War, Confederate soldiers hid there after stealing gold from the Union, according to Ron Bergeron, commissioner for the Florida Fish andWildlife Conservation Commission.
He said the soldierswere believedto be rebels, basedon the kind of munitions found at the site. He also thinks the soldiers set up the moonshine still.
“The Indians finally killed them because they camped on sacred ground,” he said.
Itwas Bergeronwhorecently broughtLost City to light, after airboaterswere unable to find thewreckage of an old warplane.
He noted the Everglades are so vast that an encampment like Lost City can be hard to find.
“Most people don’t know a thing about it, only old Gladesmen likeme,” he said.
Just the same, the area is listed as an archaeological site in the Florida State Archives. It was featured in the now-defunct Fort Lauderdale Daily News in 1949, after a couple of Davie hunters flew over it in a Piper Cub and fought theirway back to it in an airboat.
Inthemid-1970s, BobCarr, aDavie archaeologist, examined it and found several Tequesta and Seminole Indian artifacts, dating back1,000 to 2,000 years.
“It was a very impressive site from a historic, archaeological perspective,” he said.