Dade County FlArchives Biographies.....CHEEK, BERT G. 
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Nancy Rayburn Naev@earthlink.net August 11, 2007, 7:24 pm

Author: The History of Florida:  Past & Present, The Lewis Publishing Co., 1923,  Vol. II pg.138

     CHEEK, BERT G., a resident of Miami, has been the moving spirit in one of 
the largest development enterprises undertaken in South Florida in recent 
years.  This enterprise is now incorporated as the Okeelanta Food Products 
Corporation, which Mr. CHEEK organized and of which he is president.  The 
scene of the corporation’s property and development projects are the famous 
Upper Glades, near Lake Okeechobee.
     Mr. Cheek is a man of wide experience in financial affairs.  He was born 
on a farm in Missouri, and for twenty years was in the banking business, 
beginning his career with the National Bank of Commerce in Kansas City.  For 
some years he was in financial circles in Chicago and New York, and in 1916 
came to South Florida.
     Soon afterward he began active operations in the development of the Upper 
Glades section, lying south and southeast of Lake Okeechobee.  He organized 
the Okeelanta Stock Farms for the purpose of developing a beef cattle 
industry, and demonstrated that the best beef cattle could be produced here.  
At the same time he conducted extensive agricultural operations on a highly 
scientific agricultural operations as well as practical basis.  These 
operations involve the expenditure of a large amount of capital.
     In the spring of 1922 Mr. CHEEK organized the Okeelanta Food Products 
Corporation in Philadelphia, of which he is president and active head.  This 
corporation took over all the various interests which had been organized by 
Mr. CHEEK in the Okeelanta region.  The corporation has an authorized capital 
of $1,000,000 and several of the large stockholders and officials are 
Philadelphia bankers and business men.  The announced program of the 
corporation is to develop lands in the Upper Glades for growing vegetable and 
meat products, acquire transportation facilities for shipping the products to 
points of consumption, the building and operation of creameries, canning and 
packing and cold storage plants, and the establishment of retail and wholesale 
stores at Miami and elsewhere.
     The properties of the corporation are embraced in Drainage District 
Number One of the State of Florida, situated about a mile and a half on Lake 
Okeechobee, in the extreme western part of Palm Beach County.  The soil here 
is of fabulous richness and of great depth.  While the land has an elevation 
of twenty-one feet above sea level and was formerly a vast prairie, the state 
canals have furnished a thorough system of drainage so that it is possible to 
cultivate this property at all times.


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