 According to Broward Mill, the past president of the Sumter County Historical Society, Lake Panasoffkee from the time that Sumter County was settled by whites until damaging freezes which wiped out the area's citrus industry in the 1880s and 1890s.Charles G. King, a Cleveland entrepreneur, bought 2,500 acres (square kilometers) in Lake Panasoffkee and developed 737 acres (square kilometers) into Monarch Grove in 1908.An oak hammock on the property was left undisturbed.