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Highlands Today

Lake Denton Drive Heir Surfaces

Kathy Waters/Highlands Today

Nancy Cain-Anderson's late mother and father owned the land on which Lake Denton Road was built, as well as the now closed public access to the water's edge of Lake Denton.

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By Jim  Konkoly | Highlands Today

Published: January 4, 2008

SEBRING — A major turning point in the battles over public access to outdoor recreation sites in Highlands County may have occurred Thursday when the only family heir to Allie and Albert Cain surfaced.

Nancy Cain-Anderson, 47, is the only child and only immediate heir of the Cains, who platted, developed and dedicated Lake Denton Drive in the early 1950s.

"I have not been here in 25 years," Cain-Anderson said Thursday afternoon. She was posing for a photograph at the cement-block and chain-link fence barricades erected by Highlands County commissioners on Sept. 10, 2007, to close public access to the so-called county boat ramp on Lake Denton.

That so-called "boat ramp" is not a boat ramp. And it is the only public access for recreation at Lake Denton, one of Highlands County's most popular public lakes.

According to the Highlands County Plat Map of Lake Denton Drive, dedicated by the landowners, Allie and Albert Cain, and county officials, the "boat ramp" is legally part of Lake Denton Drive.

The 40-foot-wide, "shell-road" access to the water's edge was made part of Lake Denton Drive as a dedicated public street so that local citrus growers could legally drive their tanker trucks down to the water's edge.

Those citrus growers then could legally draw water out of this state-owned lake, fill their tanker trucks, and then drive off to water their citrus fields.

"I have been advised by my attorney that it is not in my best interests, nor in the best interests of anyone else, to make any public statements at this time regarding the ownership of Lake Denton Drive and the Highlands County Plat Map of that street.

"From this point on," Cain-Anderson added, "that is all I can say on this matter."

According to the plat map, signed by two Highlands County officials in addition to Cain-Anderson's parents, all of Lake Denton Drive, including the so-called "boat ramp," automatically revert to the landowners, or to their heirs, if any part of Lake Denton Drive is closed to public access.

Cain-Anderson said she was adopted by Allie and Albert Cain and was their only child.
Both her mother and her father – early settlers and developers of Highlands County – are deceased.
"I want to say that my mother was a great businesswomen, and my father was a hard-working man," Cain-Anderson said.

Cain-Anderson said she knows that her mother must have been the one who negotiated the wording of the Lake Denton Plat Map and dedication, because her father let her mother take the lead in their business and legal affairs.

"I will say one more thing," Cain-Anderson said at the concrete and chain-link barriers which the county is using to block public access to Lake Denton on the so-called "boat ramp," which was made part of the dedicated street 55 years ago to accommodate citrus growers.

"They were good people," Cain-Anderson said of her late mother and father. "And they were loving parents."

Except to lawyers, the official dedication of Lake Denton Drive is very wordy and is contained entirely in one sentence of 92 words. A journalist would divide it into two, three or even four separate sentences. But this legal document makes its points very precisely.

Under the heading of "Dedication," it reads in full:

"Know all men by these presents, that we, John Albert Cain and wife Allie H. Cain, owners of the land shown hereon and described in the title hereof, have caused the same to be surveyed, subdivided and mapped and do hereby dedicate to the perpetual use of the public all streets or roads shown hereon, provided that such streets or roads shall revert unto its owners or successors in the event such streets or roads are vacated, abandoned or otherwise cease to be used as public thoroughfares or are discontinued by law.

"Dated at Sebring, Highlands County, Florida, this 2nd day of February, 1954."

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