Port Mayaca, Florida

Port Mayaca is a sparsely populated place located in western Martin County, Florida, United States. It is on the eastern side of Lake Okeechobee. It is centered just south of the Port Mayaca Locks on the Okeechobee Waterway (St. Lucie Canal) at the intersection of S.W. Kanner Highway, {State Road 76), and S.W. Gaines Highway, (State Road 15, which is signed as U.S. Route 441 and U.S. Route 98). There are a few houses and businesses at this intersection but most are strung out north and south along Gaines Highway or east along Kanner Highway.

Post office

The Port Mayaca post office was established on June 7, 1928, and discontinued on June 30, 1958, after which time mail went to the Canal Point post office in neighboring Palm Beach County. [Bradbury, Alford G., and Hallock, E. Story, "A Chronology of Florida Post Offices, Port Salerno:Florida Classics Library, 1993, p. 68] Mail delivery for most of Port Mayaca continues to come from Canal Point.

Port Mayaca Cemetery

Located a few miles east of this intersection is the Port Mayaca Cemetery which was chosen in 1928 as the site for the mass burial of over 1,600 unidentified people who lost their lives in western Palm Beach County as the result of an unnamed Category 5 hurricane in September, 1928 and the flooding that ensued after the earthen dikes surrounding Lake Okeechobee collapsed. [http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-ahurricane14sep14,0,574121.story?page=2 Florida's forgotten storm: The Hurricane of 1928]

ee also

* 1928 Okeechobee Hurricane

Resources

* Nash, Jay Robert, "Darkest Hours", Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1976, pp. 321-322.

References

External links

* [http://www.cruisersnet.net/index.php?categoryid=64 Okeechobee Waterway bridges and locks]
* [http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/weather/hurricane/sfl-ahurricane14sep14,0,574121.story?page=2 Florida's forgotten storm: The Hurricane of 1928]