Winter Haven City Map Poster

About Winter Haven

Winter Haven is home to the Polk County's major airport, Winter Haven's Lakeland Linder Regional Airport. The city also has three large lakes: Lake Eloise, Lake Howard and Swan Lake. The area was originally inhabited by Native Americans who had migrated from northern areas in present-day Georgia and Alabama. They were part of a larger group of people who moved south into Florida around the year 1000 A.D., during the Mississippian period (800–1600), when their chiefdoms were established throughout much of what is now interior Florida and southeastern Georgia; they built earthwork mounds at key ceremonial sites near rivers or streams that flowed into larger water bodies such as lakes or bays along both coasts; these people developed extensive trading networks with other regional chiefdoms through which they obtained such prized commodities as flint for making tools, copper from North Carolina for making axes (for clearing forests) and potsherds for use in decoration.