The Arthur R. Marshall Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge is the biproduct of the drive to drain Florida's interior that dates back to the earliest days of statehood. In the 1950s and into the 1970s, Florida built three huge impoundments to contain the waters that would have flowed through the sloughs and swamps that covered western Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade counties. Loxahatchee is one of those impoundments, leased to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1951 under the Migratory Bird Conservation Act. This is the eastern levee, which extends the length of the refuge, all the way to U.S. 98 aka Southern Boulevard west of West Palm Beach. Next Photo.
