SW0112 History Hunter Steve Carr Sifts Developer’s Dirt Fill Piles to Reveal Okeechobee Battle Artifacts

Pace Ringo Starr, confirmation of the site of the Okeechobee Battlefield did not come easy. By 1985, local memory was hazy, having been handed down for several generations from 1837. In addition, hand-drawn maps from various sources contemporary to the battle did not necessarily match each other or the actual geographic features they represented, in whole or in part. Consultants hired by land developers literally dug up dry holes through a subsurface that should have yielded artifacts from the clash. Oh, and the developers didn’t want any pesky outside archaeologists nosing around the property to prove them wrong and hold up, well, land development.

Enter Bob Carr and Bill Steele on one end. We’ve podcasted with Bill Steele, who shared his recollections. On the other end was Steve Carr, no relation to Bob. The Lake Worth, Florida-native knew something was amiss. The self-described History Hunter put on his thinking cap to assess the anomaly of the land yielding no artifacts on a site that had to be the battlefield.

Steve learned that the overall battlefield, while swampy in 1837, was many decades later covered with up to five-feet of dirt to fill in the swamp and let cattle graze. It is no wonder a shovel test showed no presence, the consultants were not digging deep enough because they did not know to suspect anything so far underneath.

When the development began, excavation began and bulldozers soon carved out land fill that reached the level of battle artifacts. Dumped in a pile on public land – and out of legal recourse from the developer – Steve dug into the accumulating landfill hills to release the mountain of artifacts confirming through physical presence that this was indeed the battlefield. The precise context was lost but Steve salvaged the artifacts and since he witnessed the dirt transported from the battlefield, he knew he could associate anything he found with that site.

 

A sample of artifacts on display at the annual reenactment of the battle of Okeechobee.

 

In this episode, Steve Carr joins us to tell how he used those artifacts to recover an important site and battle from the national memory hole.

Steve was an excellent candidate to do this. He studied archeology with world famous D Porter Dawson at the University of Georgia in 1978. In a stint with the U.S. Army, Steve served with both the 5th Special Forces and 24th Infantry Divisions, making three deployments to Central America. Palm Beach County was fortunate to enjoy his services as a paramedic for 27 years.

In a sense, this was most apropo. Steve patched up people as a paramedic and he patched up our understanding of the Okeechobee Battlefield with his salvage archaeology efforts.

Now, despite his primary avocation, Steve continued to pursue his archaeological interests on the side, as demonstrated with his mid-1980s work at Okeechobee. In 1993, he started salvage archeology projects with Preserving Our Heritage director Mike Crane. He has conducted numerous mound, ceramic, and civil war site recovery projects. And for our specific interest, he has surveyed or examined 24 Seminole Wars battle sites, including Okeechobee and also the Locha Hatchie surveys. He shared what he discovered during his 17 years teaching pioneer history at Barry University.  

 

 

Host Patrick Swan is a board member with the Seminole Wars Foundation. He is a combat veteran and of the U.S. Army, serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, and Kosovo, and at the Pentagon after 9/11. A military historian, he holds masters degrees in Public History, Communication, and Homeland Security, and is a graduate of the US Army War College with an advanced degree in strategic studies. This podcast is recorded at the homestead of the Seminole Wars Foundation in Bushnell, Florida. 

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