The Indians called it impenetrable.............Dave and I left our grandparents car........and went walking on our own.............we were attacked by a swarm of mosquitoes that made the sand fleas that bit me in Parris Island later on look like sissies..........we ran back to their station wagon.........

Origin of the word[edit]

This map made by the U.S. military shows the term "Everglades" was in use by 1857.

The first written record of the Everglades was on Spanish maps made by cartographers who had not seen the land. They named the unknown area between the Gulf and Atlantic coasts of Florida Laguna del Espíritu Santo ("Lake of the Holy Spirit").^[2] The area was featured on maps for decades without having been explored. Writer John Grant Forbes stated in 1811, "The Indians represent [the Southern points] as impenetrable; and the [British] surveyors, wreckers, and coasters, had not the means of exploring beyond the borders of the sea coast, and the mouths of rivers".^[3]