Upthegrove Beach is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

Okeechobee County Okeechobee County () is a county located in the Florida Heartland region of the state of Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 39,644. The county seat is Okeechobee. History Okeechobee County was incorporated in 1917. It was ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, United States. It is located on

US 441 U.S. Route 441 (US 441) is a auxiliary route of U.S. Route 41. It extends from US 41 in Miami, Florida to US 25W in Rocky Top, Tennessee. Between its termini, US 441 travels through the states of Florida, Georgia, North ...

US 98 U.S. Route 98 (US 98) is an east–west United States Highway in the Southeastern United States that runs from western Mississippi to southern Florida. It was established in 1933 as a route between Pensacola, Florida, Pensacola and Apalachicola, ...

, on the northeastern shore of

Lake Okeechobee Lake Okeechobee ( ) is the largest freshwater lake in the U.S. state of Florida. It is the List of largest lakes of the United States by area, eighth-largest natural freshwater lake among the 50 states of the United States and the second-largest ...

History

Upthegrove Beach was named for the Upthegrove (originally

Op Den Graeff Op den Graeff () is a German and American family of Dutch origin. They were one of the first families of the Mennonite faith in Krefeld at the beginning of the 17th century. Various family members belonged to Original 13, the first organized imm ...

) family, including Union Army Captain William Hendry Upthegrove and others. Robert Upthegrove, later one of the inaugural

commissioners, settled in the area ''circa'' 1912. His son, Clarence Dewitt Upthegrove (Dewitt), at one time worked for

Thomas Edison Thomas Alva Edison (February11, 1847October18, 1931) was an American inventor and businessman. He developed many devices in fields such as electric power generation, mass communication, sound recording, and motion pictures. These inventions, ...

in Fort Myers, and later owned a heavy equipment operation that helped build the

Herbert Hoover Dike The Herbert Hoover Dike is a dike around the waters of Lake Okeechobee in Florida. History In the 1910s, a small earthen dike was constructed. This containment was breached by the storm surge from the Great Miami Hurricane in 1926 and the ...

around Lake Okeechobee and was the Supervisor of Elections for Palm Beach County. Another family member,

Laura Upthegrove Laura Beatrice Upthegrove Swindal (October 5, 1896 – August 6, 1927) was a 20th-century American outlaw, bank robber, bootlegger, and occasional pirate active in southern Florida during the 1910s and 1920s, along with John Ashley. Biography ...

, also known as The Queen of the Everglades, was a member of the notorious Ashley Gang, and was the subject of the 1973 movie ''

Little Laura and Big John ''Little Laura and Big John'' is a 1973 American feature film about the exploits of the Ashley gang in the Florida everglades in the 1910s and 1920s. Plot Loosely based on the true story about Laura Upthegrove and John Ashley. Laura's mother, E ...

''. The Upthegroves descended from the German

Op den Graeff Op den Graeff () is a German and American family of Dutch origin. They were one of the first families of the Mennonite faith in Krefeld at the beginning of the 17th century. Various family members belonged to Original 13, the first organized imm ...

family of Dutch origin. They were direct descendants of

Herman op den Graeff Herman op den Graeff, also ''Hermann'' (Kerken, Aldekerk, 26 November 1585 - Krefeld, 27 December 1642) was a Mennonite community leader from Krefeld. Biography Origin Herman op den Graeff was the first historically proven member of the Op ...

mennonite Mennonites are a group of Anabaptism, Anabaptist Christianity, Christian communities tracing their roots to the epoch of the Radical Reformation. The name ''Mennonites'' is derived from the cleric Menno Simons (1496–1561) of Friesland, part of ...

leader of

Krefeld Krefeld ( , ; ), also spelled Crefeld until 1925 (though the spelling was still being used in British papers throughout the Second World War), is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, in western Germany. It is located northwest of Düsseldorf, its c ...

, and his grandson

Abraham op den Graeff Abraham Isaacs op den Graeff, also ''Op den Graff'', ''Opdengraef'' as well as ''Op den Gräff'' (c. 1649 – c. 1731) was one of the so-called Original 13, the first closed group of German emigrants to North America, and an original founder of ...

, one of the founders of Germantown and in 1688 signer of the first protest against slavery in colonial America.

Geography

References

External links

Unincorporated communities in Okeechobee County, Florida Unincorporated communities in Florida Populated places on Lake Okeechobee {{OkeechobeeCountyFL-geo-stub