Hendry County, FL FAQs
Is Hendry County Florida A Good Place to Live?
Hendry County, FL
Hendry County is located in Southern Florida, spread between the southern shoreline of Lake Okeechobee and the unspoiled wetlands of the northern Everglades. Roughly bordered to the north by the Caloosahatchee River, this county covers a total area of 1,190 square miles, 37 square miles of which is water.
Hendry was established as a county in 1923. Its name is in memory of Captain Francis A. Hendry, a Confederate States Army officer during the American Civil War who is also a Florida cattle rancher and politician. The county seat is LaBelle and Clewiston the largest city.
Florida Heartland
Hendry County forms part of the Florida Heartland which also includes the counties of DeSoto, Glades, Hardee, Highlands, and Okeechobee. This region is primarily rural with agriculture as its main economic driver. Nearly three-fourths of Hendry’s total acreage is devoted to agricultural farms.
The primary farm produce in Hendry County include orange fruits, sugarcane and vegetables, as well as livestock. One of the largest stakeholders in Hendry’s agriculture sector is Virginia Beach-based ESG Companies which owns and operates the 18,000-acre Garcia Family Farm.
Harvesting Solar Energy
In March 2018, Florida Power and Light opened an entirely different type of farm in Hendry County—a universal solar center harvesting 74.5 megawatts of power from the sun via 330,000 solar panels on 957 acres in Hendry County. This Hammock Solar Energy Center generates zero-emissions electricity for FPL customers, and it runs virtually silent and requires no water or staff to operate. Its capacity is enough to power approximately 15,000 homes, and its green features is equivalent to removing about 12,600 cars from the road each year.
Besides this environment-friendly solar power facility and the economic value of the county’s agricultural farms, recreational delights of the great outdoors drive folks to buy Hendry properties and live in the county. The neighboring 700 square miles expanse of Lake Okeechobee is the third largest freshwater lake entirely within the U.S. and is touted as the top place for bass fishing in Florida and all of the country.
This county likewise offers the joys of boating and is also ranked among the Florida’s top five destinations for bird watching. Such activities and more could be enjoyed at these parks: Lake Okeechobee and Waterway, LaBelle Nature Park, Okaloacoochee State Forest, and Ortona Indian Mound Park.
Old South Feel
Hendry’s largest city, Clewiston, sits on the south shore of Lake Okeechobee and offers the most Southern feel in the county. It sums up its charm in the classic 57-room Clewiston Inn that evokes a strong sense of the Old South in its vintage 1926 makeup that earned for it a place in
National Register of Historic Places.
The Clewiston Museum is another town attraction with its exhibits of fossils and mammoth skeletons dug in Hendry County, maps of Florida’s Indian tribes’ trade routes, and a collection of tools and instruments used by sugar cane cutters. Clewiston was developed as a planned community with neighborhoods built in concentric half-circles notably reminiscent of Coral Gables subdivisions.
Living in Hendry County is a pleasant experience of having warm friendly neighbors amidst a natural, refreshing small-town environment. The residential choices in this community are mostly single family homes, with many affordable finds and the most prized of which are on the water. The county’s property market typically offers just a few condo townhouses plus a number of manufactured houses.
