Apopka Lake

Lake Apopka lies in a shallow basin northwest of the later site of Orlando, fed by springs, rainfall and runoff from the surrounding sand hills. Its water once passed through marshes toward the Ocklawaha lake chain and the St. Johns River. Before drainage, the lake was larger than its later outline, with broad marshy shores and abundant fish, turtles and waterfowl. The broad lake, shallow water and surrounding pine-covered sand hills shaped routes among inland settlements.

Timucua communities lived along those shores when Europeans entered Florida. They grew corn, squash and gourds, gathered coontie and hunted and fished in the surrounding wetlands. Epidemic disease and colonial warfare emptied the area by the early eighteenth century. Creek bands moving south from Georgia and Alabama later adapted to Florida and became known as Seminoles.

By the early nineteenth century, a Seminole settlement stood near the lake the newcomers called Ahapopka. The United States acquired Florida in 1821 and pressure for removal increased after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. During the Second Seminole War the lake's communities were displaced, and American settlement followed only after the conflict. Apopka thus remained a watery frontier of marsh, fishing and indigenous routes until the plantation era.