Long before roads and rails crisscrossed the Everglades, the Seminole Tribe had their own method of transportation: The Water Highway.

Forced deep into the Everglades after war with the U.S. government in the 1800s, the Seminole Tribe learned to live in the swampy environs. Tribal members used a network of trails to navigate the swamp. Water levels rise and fall depending on the time of the year, so when the paths were submerged, the tribesfolk would employ dugout canoes made of water-resistant bald cypress with bows shaped into a point to make it easier to cut through the sawgrass. They’d use long poles to push these lightweight boats around the shallow waters.

Their transportation made it easier for the Seminoles to conduct trade. Their settlements were purposefully hidden deep in the Everglades, away from the new residents of the burgeoning towns along the coastal areas. But the tribe would establish trust with a few trading posts, such as Ted Smallwood’s store in the Ten Thousand Islands. There, tribal members would barter alligator hides, egret plumes, deer pelts and such in exchange for flour, grits, gunpowder or pots and pans. (Pictured above is a member of the Seminole Tribe in a dugout canoe at Smallwood’s store circa 1930.)

Soon, modern transportation began to change the South Florida landscape. The Tamiami Trail was built in 1928, and it, along with irrigation and drainage projects, altered the water flow in the Everglades in the coming decades. A new era was arriving, and the Water Highway was coming to an end.