After the Civil War, an agency named the Internal Improvement Fund (IIF), charged with using grant money to improve Florida's infrastructure through canals, rail lines, and roads, was eager to be rid of the debt incurred by the Civil War. IIF trustees found a Pennsylvania real estate developer named Hamilton Disston who was interested in implementing plans to drain the land for agriculture. Disston was persuaded to buy of land for $1 million in 1881.Davis, T. Frederick (January 1939). "The Disston Land Purchase ", The Florida Historical Quarterly, 17 (3), p. 201–211. The New York Times declared it the largest purchase of land ever by any individual.Barnett, p. 17. Disston began building canals near St. Cloud to lower the basin of the Caloosahatchee and Kissimmee Rivers. His workers and engineers faced conditions similar to those of the soldiers during the Seminole Wars; it was harrowing, backbreaking labor in dangerous conditions. The canals seemed at first to work in lowering the water levels in the wetlands surrounding the rivers. Another dredged waterway between the Gulf of Mexico and Lake Okeechobee was built, opening the region to steamboat traffic.Grunwald, p. 92–93.
