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Maybe you have never heard of Citrus Center, folks, but it is a real place in Glades County. I found the marker on Hwy. 78 leading from Moore Haven to Ortona about half way. It hides in grasses on the side of the highway next to the entrance to People’s Ranch across from Wayman Road. 
Citrus Center is sad. All that’s left of a once thriving town around the first of the 20th century is a road sign that’s like a grave marker. The road to the ghost town is closed to the public. History books say there were at least a 100 people living in Citrus Center and it had fine 2-story hotel, one of the largest in South Florida, built in 1917. There was a church and a post office and the pioneer spirit of these early Florida settlers in Citrus Center was filled with hope and enthusiasm. It had a school and many new homes. Before new roads were built that bypassed the booming town it was a major stop by boat on the Caloosahatchee River with brisk trade including the produce of watermelon farms, tropical fruit and honey. It was still booming in 1925 with moonshine a hot commodity but the hurricane of 1926 was disastrous. A Moore Haven old timer, Tommy Cook , remembers going to school there in the 1930s when his dad worked on dredging the Caloosahatchee. He remembers the day the hotel burnt to the ground while the owners were out on the river to get the catch of the day to be served to their dinner guests. Rumors spread about arson. Glades County always was, and still is, a place where a rumor can start in one community like Lakeport and be going strong the next day 30 miles away in Muse. Back then there were also rumors of battles over land between cattle barons and the citified gentry moving in. Houses were burnt. Fences put up. It was Florida’s wild wild west, many Florida historian has said. There were many other factors that caused the demise of Citrus Center including the depression years, but mostly the undeniable fact that people didn’t take steam boats anymore to travel the river towns of South Florida after a major highway was built right through Moore Haven and shifting prosperity to this competing small town, now the county seat. You can find a little information in the Glades County History Book for sale at the library about Citrus Center, but not much. I wanted to get a sense of this forgotten place of Glades County and took my Sunday drive down tree lined Wayman Road to investigate what’s left. Here you see beautiful ranches in a pastoral setting , country homes belonging to some of Glades County’s first families of the Citrus Center area , names like Peoples, Ahern and Ward among them. 
Here you see one of the most authentic historic homes remaining in Glades County, the Adolph Bernhardt home built circa 1915. 
The present owners, the Garvey’s, have lovingly restored this beautiful house to a magnificent showcase. We were lucky enough to get a tour. It wasn’t planned but a wonderful surprise. They know the house was a kit home, perhaps an Sears or an Alladin, but no records can be found.
Becky and Buddy Garvey have recreated the historic period of the house
There is the old barn still standing that Bernhardt and his two sisters lived in for several years while building their country manor in the outskirts of Citrus Center. Bernhardt, of German extraction, grew tropical fruit. In his day he was a leading citizen of Citrus Center, but without heirs he has become a forgotten person in Glades County lore and records are few. 
There are numerous people in those days that came to Glades County to start a new life and launched new businesses to serve a wholesome growing community. Unfortunately their dreams died. Cattle barons took ownership of more than 70 percent of the land. Some day that may seem to be a good thing. Glades County remains one of the most remote, isolated and serene places left in all of South Florida. Industry failed to come here, or was chased away, and our cherished land of the Glades remains mostly untouched by the hand of man. Only 13,000 people live in Glades County. It won’t always be this way. Go on a Sunday Drive and see how blessed we are because one day our descendants might lament the economic development we so eagerly seek. It seems impossible to imagine the changes that take place in a hundred years. It would have been the same for the residents of Citrus Center.
I had kayaked that lake with a bunch of tourists in 1996 when I attempted to operate my own ecotourism business called Florida Outback Bike & Boat Tours. They were enthralledby the wildlife and the beautiful flowers in bloom. My business failed. No one was talking about ecotourism in Glades County back then, but me. I guess I was ahead of my time. 
Next we meandered down the road known here as “old” US 27 that passes the American Legion Hall and the artist studio that award-winning painter Wes Ringstaff worked out of for many years. He is building a fine new one now elsewhere. 
The road ends at the official US 27 and we took a right and less than half mile later a right onto a dirt road leading toward the lake again. Here we saw acres of sod and cane fields. But most of the vast acreage is state owned.
that took us to the south east side of Lake Hicpochee and came upon another historic building, an old pump house. It was a pretty fascinating sight of old pump machinery and new. It stands on a hill where wild castor beans grow. A place to fish from a bank or escape from chores just to think. It was a glorious drive. 
