A history of Clewiston,
since 1920
Postcards, papers and photographs of Clewiston from public archives, woven together by decade. Neighbors fill in the gaps.
The story
from WikipediaRead it all ↗The area beside Lake Okeechobee was once used as a fishing camp by the Seminole tribe. The first permanent settlement began in 1920, when John O'Brien of Philadelphia and Alonzo Clewis (1864-1944) of Tampa purchased a large tract of land to establish a town. They commissioned a town plan and built the Moore Haven & Clewiston Railway to connect the community to the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad at Moore Haven. Incorporated as a city in 1925, Clewiston would become noted for its sport fishing, particularly of largemouth bass.
Text from Wikipedia, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.
Timeline
built from the dates on the items belowFinish Clewiston’s story
Most archives stop around 1920. The photos from after that are in family albums, not libraries.
2 of 10 decades since 1900 have photos 🔁Retake an old viewOld Hendry County Courthouse- La …, 1926: stand where they stood+15 📦Share a family photoSign in to add one+10Famous people from Clewiston
See all 10 →
Clewiston, decade by decade
LOCHarvesting sugarcane, United States Sugar Corporation1939
LOCHarvesting sugarcane, United States Sugar Corporation1939
LOCHarvesting sugarcane, United States Sugar Corporation1939
LOCHarvesting sugarcane, United States Sugar Corporation1939
LOCHarvesting sugarcane, United States Sugar Corporation19391990s
Then & now
No then-and-now pairs yet. Take a photo from the same spot as Old Hendry County Courthouse- La Belle, Florida (1926) and it appears here side by side.
🔁 Retake this view · +15Stories next door
nearby towns’ historyFrom Wikimedia Commons (1) and the Library of Congress (5). Images are copied here with their credits and licenses, shown on each photo’s page. Refreshed monthly.