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13 million years ago...
...Florida emerged from the sea. Giant ground sloths, horses, and saber-toothed tigers roamed Florida.


Two to five million years ago...
...seas deposited sand creating the Lake Wales Ridge. Present-day Lake Placid, Sebring, Lake Wales, and Haines City were beach front property.


650,000 years ago. . .
...shallow seas covered low-lying portions of the Florida peninsula.


20,000 years ago. . .
...the seas retreated, locked up in polar ice caps. A great dry ecosystem stretched from what is now Central America into the western United States across the Gulf Coast and dipped into the Florida Peninsula; the Florida Peninsula was twice its current size.
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120 years ago. . .
...approximately 80,000-100,000 acres of native upland habitat thrived on the Ridge.



1990. . .
...about 85 percent of original Lake Wales Ridge upland habitats has been either cleared for agriculture and business or platted for residential use. 		Lake Wales Ridge
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