Clewiston Inn, historic site in Clewiston, Florida, USA
The Clewiston Inn is a historic hotel in Clewiston, Florida, built in 1926 and the oldest lodging in the Lake Okeechobee area. Its neoclassical architecture features symmetrical forms and columns in a brick structure with large windows, while the interior displays wooden furnishings and early 20th-century decor throughout its fifty-seven rooms.
The hotel was founded in 1926 by the Southern Sugar Company, survived two major hurricanes in the 1920s, but was destroyed by fire in 1937 and rebuilt in 1938 by the U.S. Sugar Corporation in neoclassical style. The reinforced concrete structure later served as an emergency shelter during major floods in the 1940s and 1960s and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
This hotel carries deep ties to Clewiston's identity as a sugar industry town and serves as a gathering place that reflects the area's development over generations. Inside the lobby, a large mural from the 1940s depicts Everglades wildlife and plants, visually connecting guests to the local natural landscape and the region's relationship with its environment.
The hotel sits on U.S. Route 27 near Lake Okeechobee and is within easy reach of restaurants, town shops, and walking paths. Guests enjoy free parking, free Wi-Fi throughout the property, and access to the dock area to view alligators, while staff can arrange boat trips on the lake or tours of local sugar mills.
A noted artist named J. Clinton Shepherd painted a large mural in the hotel's lounge in 1940 depicting deer, herons, and other Everglades animals that still covers the wall today. During severe floods in the 1940s and 1960s, the hotel served as a refuge for hundreds of people from surrounding areas who cooked meals and slept together in its hallways.
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