Archaeology at
Platt Island in the preserve shows humans settled there more than two thousand years ago. The
Calusa people had an extensive presence in the area when Europeans arrived. Big Cypress was historically occupied by various cultures of
Native Americans; the last were the
Seminole of the nineteenth century. Their descendants include the federally recognized
Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and the
Seminole Tribe of Florida. Early European-American settlers hunted herons and egrets, whose feathers were popular with 19th and 20th century hat-makers in New York and
Paris. Poachers hunted
American alligators and
American crocodiles to near extinction. When the timber industry began to operate in the area, it built railroads, and cut and hauled out most of the
cypress ecosystem's
old growth trees. An area of approximately along and west of State Road 29 in the western part of the Big Cypress, now known as the Green Heart of the Everglades, was commercially farmed for winter vegetables from the late 1920s until the 1960s. The search for oil in Florida began in 1901 with no success. After almost 80 dry holes had been drilled throughout the state, on September 26, 1943,
Humble Oil Company (at the time partly owned by and later merged into
Standard Oil of New Jersey) discovered Florida's first producing oil well in the northwest portion of what is now Big Cypress National Preserve. When Everglades National Park was
established in 1947, Big Cypress was originally intended to be included; however, because the land had not been purchased from its private owners, Big Cypress was ultimately released from the park system. In the 1960s, the site was proposed to become the Miami Jetport, a massive new airport intended to replace
Miami International Airport. Construction began in 1968, but due to efforts of Native Americans, hunters, and conservationists, construction was halted in 1970 after only one of the proposed six runways was completed. They followed up with a campaign to have Big Cypress included in the National Park System. The single completed runway is now known as the
Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport; in 2025, it became the site of
Alligator Alcatraz, a rapid-build immigration detention facility. Big Cypress National Preserve differs from Everglades National Park in that, when it was established by law in 1974, the Miccosukee, Seminole and Traditional people were provided with permanent rights to occupy and use the land in traditional ways; in addition, they have first rights to develop income-producing businesses related to the resources and use of the preserve, such as guided tours. They and other hunters may use
off-road vehicles, and home and business owners have been permitted to keep their properties in the preserve. As in Everglades National Park,
petroleum exploration was permitted within Big Cypress in the authorizing legislation, but plans are under way for the government to buy out the remaining
petroleum leases in order to shut down non-governmental commercial access to the environment. In 2016, Big Cypress National Preserve became the first national preserve to be designated as a Dark Sky Park by
DarkSky International park in 2016. ==Climate==