published: Sunday, February 03, 2013

Discover more history

By CHRISTOPHER TUFFLEY

christopher.tuffley@newssun.com

LAKE PLACID -- An excellent opportunity to learn about local history exists right now at the Lake Placid Historical Society Depot Museum.

The "We Were Here" exhibition is now open.

The exhibit is about pre-Columbian life in Central Florida. It is not elaborate, but thorough. Eight panels combine to teach the basic geography, social structure, and origins of a civilization known as the Belle Glade Culture (500 BC- 1500 AD). The people lived around Lake Okeechobee, Lake Istokpoga and what is now Lake Jackson.

The exhibit also explains about the culture's tools and art, and what the people ate and where they went.

Sponsored by the Lawrence E. Will Museum of the Glades in Belle Glade, and funded by the Florida Bureau of Historic Preservation as a Viva Florida 500 exhibition, this is the second time in two months Highlands County was chosen to host a traveling historical exhibit. The first was by the Smithsonian Museum at Highlands Art League's Museum of the Arts in Sebring.

In each case, the county was one of the few sites selected for tour because of its central location and infrastructure.

The exhibit will at the Depot Museum through Feb. 18. Two panels are at the Memorial Library.

The library is putting together a special display of books on the subject. The museum has a special display of artifacts and tools from roughly around the period.

Call the LP Depot Museum at 465-1771 for more information.