Hendry County is a county in the Florida Heartland region of the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,619, a 1.2% increase from 39,140 at the 2010 census. The county is majority-Hispanic or Latino. Its county seat is LaBelle. Hendry County is in the Clewiston micropolitan area, a Micropolitan statistical area (μSA) which also includes Glades County. These two counties, along with the Cape Coral-Fort Myers (Lee County) MSA and the Naples-Marco Island (Collier County) MSA, constitute the Cape Coral-Fort Myers-Naples Combined Statistical Area (CSA).
History
Indigenous peoples migrated into Florida around 10000 B.C.E., while the Glades culture existed in southern Florida from approximately 500 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E. When Europeans arrived in Florida in the 16th century, the Calusa and Mayaimi tribes resided in Southwest Florida and around Lake Okeechobee.
In the early 1800s, French trader Pierre Denaud established a trading post in the modern-day LaBelle area. During the Seminole Wars, United States troops built a fort along the Caloosahatchee River in 1838, named Fort Denaud in his honor. About three years later, Fort Thompson was established. These military posts became the first permanent settlements in modern-day Hendry County. Originally, the area now comprising Hendry County remained relatively inaccessible, as the Florida Everglades covered more than half of the county's present-day boundaries. Further, nearly the entire area became submerged with water seasonally; thus, only cattle-grazing was a suitable industry. However, by 1881, the Atlantic and Gulf Coast and Okeechobee Land Company began draining the land after entering into a contract with the trustees of the internal improvement fund. The county's first post office was established at Fort Thomson in 1884. The state of Florida established Lee County in 1887, which included land now part of Hendry County. Settlement in LaBelle began around 1889 or 1890, after the town was platted by Francis A. Hendry, a cattle rancher, politician, and officer in the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War. In 1911, LaBelle became the oldest municipality in modern-day Hendry County after officially incorporating. By the early 1920s, residents in the eastern Lee County communities of Clewiston, Felda, Fort Denaud, and LaBelle began campaigning for the creation of a new county. Among their reasons for supporting the establishment of a new county was dissatisfaction with the distance between eastern Lee County settlements and the county seat, Fort Myers. Around that time, the Caloosahatchee Current was established to prove that the area could sustain a newspaper publication.
On May 11, 1923, just three days after neighboring Collier County was also created and partitioned from Lee County, the Florida Legislature voted to establish Hendry County, named after Francis A. Hendry. The courthouse was finished in 1927, and has been listed in the National Register of Historic Places since 1990. In 1925, the only other incorporated municipality in Hendry County, Clewiston, became a city.
The Number 5 British Flying Training School was operated at Riddle Field in Clewiston during World War II, with more than 1,800 Royal Air Force pilots trained there. Upon completion of the Herbert Hoover Dike in 1961, a dedication ceremony was held in Clewiston, which included a speech by former president Herbert Hoover. The county borders Lake Okeechobee; the Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail runs through Hendry County. Hendry County is the southernmost county in the United States which does not have an ocean coastline or an international border.
Adjacent counties
- Glades County - north
- Martin County - northeast
- Okeechobee County - <br /> northeast via 5 county intersection in the middle of Lake Okeechobee
- Palm Beach County - east
- Broward County - southeast
- Collier County - south
- Lee County - west
- Charlotte County - west