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It's
called
Okeechobee City now, but once it was known as "Tantie" one of the
wildest
settlements
east
of the
Mississippi. It was surrounded by cow camps on the north, sawmills on
the
east, and by catfish
boys.
"When
thing's got to going in Tantie, Mister, if you think that wasn't a rip
roarin'. hell raising town
it's
just
cause you ain't never been there."
Tantie
got
its start back in 1896, when Peter Raulerson, from Polk County, who was
looking for some
cattle
range
that hadn't been taken up, stopped his three yoke of oxen at the bend
in
Taylor Creek and built
himself
a
log house and called it home. about six years later, in 1902 Henry H
Hancock
arrived, settled across
on
the east
side of the Creek and set out an orange grove. In the course of time,
other
people drifted in. Some of
them
were
trying to homestead, such as Dr. S.L. Hubbard. To be sure, he was a
Yankee,
from Connecticut at
that,
but
he was a right clever fellow and pretty handy to have around. He taught
those wild kids their 3'R, did
what
doctoring
there was to do and with assistance of "Aunt Merida" Raulerson,
delivered
the babies when they
arrived.
Doc Hubbard was a big imposing figure of a man with most impressive
whiskers-though
this adornment
was
marred
right smart that time when some boys primed his smoking pipe with
gunpowder.
Yet all agreed that
he
was a
right good doctor and a stomped down good teacher also.
Mrs.
Steffee and Mrs Stuckly taught school here also, in an old palmetto
shack, but
as children here at the
Bend
increased
in number, Henry Hancock sent off for a new teacher from South Carolina
- blond, energetic and
fortyish,
her name was Tantie Huckabee.
It
didn't
take Tantie any two forevers to get that palmetto shack replaced by a
nice
frame school house and
she
got started
for a post office and she got that too! Miss Tantie was so endeared to
the hearts of both kids and their
parents,
that the new post office was christened "Tantie" and that's what the
settlement
was called, even long after its
name
had
been changed to Okeechobee.
Tantie's
name was changed to Okeechobee in 1912, but nothing else was changed
until
the railroad started coming in 1915.
In
the catfishing
days, the important part of town was down at the Creek. The boats
unloaded
fish and took on ice,
dredges
got
large loads of coal and steamboats docked. The Creek was where you
could
see some action in the catfish days.
The
boatmen
fought to be first in line for ice, what time they weren't fighting for
the pure pleasure of it. Drinking was common
in
camps,
but drunkenness was not, because all hands had to work too hard. But in
Tantie, with their pockets stuffed with green
folding
money
and whiskey (mostly "shine") just waiting to be drank, they could
frolic
to their hearts content.
Okeechobee
was derived from the indian words "Oki" meaning Water and "Chobee"
meaning
Big. One of the outstanding
battles
of
the Seminole War was fought in this vicinity on Christmas Day, 1837. A
monument marks the spot on U.S. 441 S.E.
Okeechobee
City was incorporated in 1915. Its wide streets and old wooden frame
buildings,
some of which are still standing,
in
the older
parts of downtown Okeechobee, where the design of Henry Morrison
Flaggler.
Okeechobee is known for some of the best fishing in the United States
also
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