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A History of Marathon and Duck Key

04 Aug
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I have been frequenting Marathon for the last few years working with my friend Brian Schmitt on our Florida Keys history book. We both collect antique maps and hence included in the name “A History Through Maps”. When we started the project I didn’t realize what a pivotal role Marathon played in Henry Flagler’s Oversea Railway. The Keys railway began in 1905 and soon Marathon became a work camp and headquarters for the project. Every type of industry emerged to serve the railroad: machine shops, steamship landings and supply depots, housing, administrative buildings, a post office and schools. By 1908 the train rolled into town. The track ended on a man-made island of pilings over the water by Knight’s Key, west of Key Vaca. The pile-supported village had a train station and ferry landings to take passengers to Key West or Havana, restaurants and even a hotel! Prior to the name Marathon, the area was called Key Vaca. The Spanish may have named it Key Vaca for different reasons. “Cayo de Bacas” (island of berries) or “vacas” (cows, likely referring to manatees) or one of their own men named Vaca. Calusa and perhaps Tequesta Indians inhabited the area in the early 1500s when the Spanish first arrived. In Key Vaca settlers from the Bahamas and others from New England built small communities and sparsely populated the area in the early 1800s, living off the sea by fishing, salvaging shipwrecks and agriculture. As in the Bahamas, the rocky nature of the soil and lack of abundant fresh water made for poor farming. Wrecking once sustained the Keys with cargos being auctioned off in Key West but in the late 1800s the business was doomed by the advent of lighthouses and steamships which made shipping along the Keys reef much safer. Railroad construction brought a boom to Marathon but things went into decline once the track was finished to Key West 1912, when it took over the role of southern most port in the United States. The railroad ended for good in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935, but the storm brought an opportunity to repurpose the railroad bridges for cars and in 1938 the Keys Overseas Highway was completed from one end of the Keys to the other. Marathon gained an airport during WWII, it now features a long runway and has international standing with an active U.S. Customs and Border Protection facility. As the island grew, a number of dredge and fill subdivisions were completed in the 1950s and 1960s, providing hundreds of waterfront homesites. Key Colony Beach sprang from a 1959 dredge-and-fill project that added land and canals to the formerly low-lying island. Other communities sprang up in the area as well, like Duck Key with it’s now famous resort. Environmentally minded projects have also been built including the Dolphin Research Facility on Grassy Key and the Turtle Hospital in Marathon that opened in 1986. Curry Hammock State Park was created in 1991 and includes large areas of mangrove, rockland hammocks and seagrass beds vital to preserving the ecosystem of the Keys. Crane Point Hammock Museum and Nature Center in Marathon includes walking trails and a beautifully restored Bahamian settler’s house from the early 1900s. The Marathon - Duck Key area today has everything you want with a laid back island style; plenty of boating, diving and snorkeling, sightseeing and fishing with excellent restaurants to enjoy the local seafood. To learn more about history of Marathon and other islands in the Florida Keys, check out The Florida Keys a History Through Maps. The book and custom map of the keys can be purchased online on this website. Questions? Call us at 239-963-3497!
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Categories: Book Blog

History of Lignumvitae, Long Key and Lower Matecumbe

31 Jul
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This stretch of the Keys is one of my favorites to drive through with several bridges and beautiful views. I like some of the restaurants on Lower Matecumbe and also the interesting history of Indian Key and Long Key with it’s once famous Long Key Fish Camp, where billfishing was popularized by Zane Grey in the early 1900s. The name Matecumbe was likely a Spanish take on a Calusa Indian name for the area. The interface of the Spanish and Indians was so violent at first that it’s been suggested the name comes from a Spanish word meaning “to kill man.” The fate of early ship wreck victims was indeed violent as they were either killed or enslaved by the Calusa. Indian Key was the site of a later Indian attack during the Seminole Indian Wars. Dr. Henry Perrine and other settlers were killed there in 1840 during a violent period as the U.S. Army attempted to relocate the Florida Indians to Oklahoma. Perrine served as an American consul in Mexico, where he looked for ways to introduce useful tropical plants to the U.S. In 1838 he moved to Indian Key and started a plant nursery on Lower Matecumbe. He’d been working on a land grant when he was killed and the family ended up with a large piece of property near Miami, today’s community of Perrine. Indian Key had a store which supplied ships in the area that worked in the lucrative wrecking trade (salvaging cargos from wrecked ships). Later It would be served by the railroad’s Indian Key station on Matecumbe, where the train would stop on its way to Marathon in 1908 and eventually to Key West in 1912. Indian Key, like Lignumvitae Key, is a state park today. Lignumvitae Key has some of the highest natural ground in the Keys at sixteen feet above sea level. Lignum vitae is a tropical hardwood tree that produces a hard and oily wood prized in early shipbuilding. The Matheson family once lived on Lignumvitae, their house built a few years after the railroad passed through the adjacent mainland. It was sold to the Nature Conservancy in 1970 and is now a botanical state park filled with other interesting trees like gumbo limbo and poisonwood. Early Spanish charts show Long Key as Cayo Vivora. The island was a work camp for the railroad and, when the hurricane of 1906 struck, a barge housing railroad workers broke loose drowning many of the men aboard. The Long Key Fishing Camp was established in 1908 and famous fishermen and authors like Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway visited and wrote about the virtues of fishing in the Florida Keys. The sport of sailfishing was started there, a fish that had formerly been denounced as “boohoo” or “spikefish” as they sliced through lines while pursuing more edible fish. Grey rebranded sailfish the “gamiest and most beautiful fish,” launching a passion for many fishermen that persists to this day. Fishing is still great in the area and the spirit of Zane Grey lives on! For more on the history of the Keys in Florida, check out our newest book here! You can also take a look at our various maps of Florida, the Caribbean, the East Coast and even the Great Lakes at islandmapstore.com. Please call (239) 963-3497 for any questions regarding the books or maps! Florida Keys Map
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Categories: Book Blog

History of Plantation Key and Islamorada

14 Jul
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I’ve been visiting the Keys for over 40 years, fishing, diving and more recently writing The Florida Keys A History Through Maps with co-author Brian Schmitt. I usually fly my plane from Naples to airports in Marathon or Key West but occasionally I drive. The crystal clear sea reminds me of the Bahamas with a beautiful array of water colors depending on the depth and type of bottom (sand, grass, rock or coral). Driving the Keys Overseas Highway to Key West is something everyone in America should experience, once you do it you’ll agree. The sea view starts when you leave Key Largo and start crossing the many bridges that ultimately take you to Key West. The first island past Key Largo is Plantation Key then Windley Key and Upper and Lower Matecumbe. All of these Keys are incorporated into the village of Islands, “Islamorada”. Islamorada or “Island Home” was named by William Krome, one of the Key’s railroad engineers and namesake of Krome Avenue west of Miami. Plantation Key had a large Indian mound that was leveled for construction in 1958. Research by state archaeologists date artifacts from the mound to 1,500 years before present times, 1,000 years before the Spanish first explored the Keys where they would have encountered the Tequesta and Calusa Indian tribes. By the mid-1700s the Indians were gone from the Keys, victims of wars, disease and eventual relocation to Cuba. The Keys Oversea railroad came through the area in the early 1900s and the track was completed to Marathon in 1908. During construction, low areas of Plantation Key were connected with fill to form rail bed and several small islands (the Umbrella Keys) were joined to form Windley Key. Henry Flagler’s effort to join islands was often a more efficient means of constructing the railroad than building bridges. The railroad connection made it to Key West in 1912 but was destroyed by the hurricane of 1935, devastating Upper and Lower Matecumbe Keys and killing more than 400 people. A memorial can be seen today in Islamorada to honor those who lost their lives. The monument is made of “Keystone”, a decorative rock once mined in the Keys which is actually fossilized coral once used to decorate buildings across America. Hurricane Donna damaged the area in 1960 but rebuilding led to modern developments like the Cheeca Lodge (named after the owners Cynthia, known as ‘Chee’ and Carl, the ‘ca,’ Cheeca). Prior to that Bud and Mary’s marina opened in the 1940s as a bait and boat rental business. Sid and Roxy’s Green Turtle Inn opened in 1947 and the Islander Inn in 1951. Stark’s Fish Camp became the Whale Harbor Inn by the Whale Harbor Channel Bridge and Holiday Isles (now Postcard Inn) and the infamous Tiki Bar was on the other side of bridge. There is much to see in the area and more history can be learned at the Florida Keys History & Discovery Center in Islamorada. To read more about the history of Plantation Key to Islamorada, check out The Florida Keys A History Through Maps. For maps and more information visit our website or call Island Map Store at 239- 963-3497.
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Categories: Book Blog
Dry Tortugas Lighthouse

Dry Tortugas: A Brief History

07 Jul
0 105 Post by
I just had a wonderful fishing trip to the Dry Tortugas with Fort Jefferson and the Loggerhead Key Lighthouse visible on the horizon. We ran down from Naples at about 60 mph to an area just outside the park boundaries. Red snapper are in giant congregations this time of year making it was easy to catch our limit along with Yellowtail snapper and some large Red grouper! I’ve been to Ft Jefferson a number of times and it’s something every seaworthy Floridian should see, truly a national treasure. The name Tortugas came from Ponce de León when he was exploring Florida in 1513. He named the small islands Las Tortugas or “the turtles” which were in abundance there. “Dry” was added in later years noting the lack of fresh water. The islands were used as a base for salvaging ship wrecks during centuries of Spanish rule and the most famous wreck of them all, Atocha, sank just thirty miles to the east. The history of Fort Jefferson began when the United States acquired the Florida Territory from Spain in 1819. The Dry Tortugas were seen as strategic in protecting the new American Territory and work began with a lighthouse on Garden Key in 1825 and on the fort in 1847. A new, more powerful lighthouse was built on nearby Loggerhead Key in 1856. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 the fort was partially completed and was used as a Union prison for Confederates. The prison’s most famous inmate was Dr. Samuel Mudd, convicted of aiding John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. He was later pardoned. The bricks in Fort Jefferson are two different colors; one for bricks from Confederate states before the war and a different color from northern states used during the war. Shore facilities at Fort Jefferson provided a critical coal fueling station in the late 1800s as Navy and merchant ships transitioned from sail to steam. Steamships were safer since they no longer depended on wind & sail to avoid the Keys infamous reef. Two massive piers were built to store coal and the U.S. Navy dredged channels so the largest battleships could load alongside. In 1898, the Navy’s North American Squadron steamed into Key West in preparation for the Spanish-American War in Cuba. The fleet was so large it was relocated to the Dry Tortugas where Fort Jefferson could fuel the ships. Hundreds of pilings from the old piers can still be seen today. By WWI, ships were switching from coal to oil because it was lighter to carry and the fueling station was abandoned. During WWII seaplanes operated out of a base at Fort Jefferson, greatly extending the Navy’s range for the detection and destruction of German submarines operating in the Gulf Stream and in the Gulf of Mexico. The fort is 60 miles west of Key West. In 1935 President Franklin D. Roosevelt designated Fort Jefferson a national monument. Large areas of the Dry Tortugas are now one of America’s newest national parks. The park includes more than 100 square miles with only forty acres, including Fort Jefferson, above water. Today Fort Jefferson is a lovely place to visit by boat or by seaplanes, which operate out of Key West. Take the time to visit America’s most remote island Fort! For more history on the Dry Tortugas and other Florida Keys order a copy of the new The Florida Keys A History Through Maps book or visit our website here! If you have any questions please feel free to contact The Island Map Store at 239-963-3497.
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Categories: Book Blog
Key Largo South Map

History of South Key Largo

02 Jul
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I’m going back to the Keys soon where I love to fish and visit the many waterfront resorts and restaurants where local seafood is served. The water is clear and clean, snorkeling on the coral reef is excellent! There’s also a lot of history which is detailed in our book The Florida Keys, A History Through Maps which was featured in the Miami Herald and on the cover of Florida Weekly, Naples Illustrated and Spotlight magazine. Here’s a few historical highlights for Key Largo. As with all the Keys, the native Calusa and Tequesta Indian tribes controlled the territory in Key Largo which made life difficult for early explorers. Spanish sailors and those of other countries would have been the first to land in the area in search of gold, silver, slaves and other things of value.  Unfortunately for them and any shipwreck survivors, they themselves were often slaughtered or enslaved and then traded back to Spain, if they were lucky!  The last of the Calusa left the Keys for Cuba around 1763 as England took over Florida. They’d formed alliances with the Spanish and spoke their language but still struggled. Arrival of the British was the last straw and they were re-settled outside of Havana where thier bloodline was continued, as recorded in Spanish church records. Early settlement of Key Largo was slow and anyone there prior to 1840, when the Seminole Indians were attacking, likely left. An 1850 census of the Keys noted only one family on Key Largo. Pineapple farming became profitable later in the 1800s and more settlers came but the transport of goods still depended on sailing boats to Key West and growth was erratic. Construction of the Florida East Coast Railway came to Key Largo around 1905 through thick tropical hammocks, rock outcropping, swamps and small waterways. Key Largo had some of the highest ground in the entire Keys chain and when Flagler’s engineers arrived they started quarries to provide rock and fill for the rail bed. The forest here was different from anything they’d encountered in other parts of Florida; tropical hardwood hammock trees like gumbo limbo, poisonwood and manchineel (also poisonous) were common. Rattlesnakes, coral snakes, crocodiles, alligators, clouds of mosquitoes, hurricanes and other surprises challenged the railroad men until the track to Key West was completed in 1912. The same road bed as the railway survives today under many areas of the Overseas Highway. The Highway arrived from Miami in the 1920s but wasn’t completed to Key West until 1938. The road brought more tourists and prosperity to the Keys, and also land speculators and developers. Popular demand for waterfront housing and boating access drove the construction of communities by dredging the mangroves and shallow sea bottoms. The rock and sand dredged up was used to create dry land and the Keys waterfront you see today. These practices are no longer allowed today which makes waterfront property a precious commodity. There is much to see in Key Largo both onshore and offshore where Pennekamp Coral Reef Start Park is a national treasure, the only living reef of it’s kind in America. If you’ve never seen the wonders of a coral reef, this is good place to start even if you’ve never snorkeled before! To learn more about history of Key Largo and other islands in the Florida Keys, check out The Florida Keys a History Through Maps. The book can be purchased online on this website. For all questions, please call us at 239-963-3497 or visit our website.
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Categories: Book Blog

New Article Published in Spotlight Magazine

01 Jul
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Spotlight Article on The Florida Keys a History Through MapsJuly 1,2020- A new article has been published in Spotlight Magazine on The Florida Keys A History Through Maps book. Spotlight News Magazine published an article in their July issue highlighting The Florida Keys A History Through Maps and author Todd Turrell. Pick up a copy near you or read it online here. Thank you Spotlight and author Don Manley for featuring us in such a great article! Be sure to stay up to date on other news along with our weekly blog featuring snippets from all of our books! For more information on The Florida Keys A History Through Maps, other books and maps visit islandmapstore.com or call 239-963-3497.
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Categories: News
Florida Keys Map

History of North Key Largo

23 Jun
0 103 Post by
Key Largo has recently reopened after being shut down to the public for nearly two months. Many people will flocking here since this is one of the best times to visit the Keys - in early summer when the air is warm but the water still somewhat cool from winter! It is also a good time to visit since things are still quiet, just be sure to have reservations since resorts are easing back into business. Here’s a little history on the northern part of Key Largo if you go, or even if you don't! Stay tuned for a future blog on the southern end of Key Largo. The Spanish name for Key Largo was Cayo Largo, or Long Cay which is fitting since Key Largo is about thirty-three miles long. While southern Key Largo is known for the spectacular reef in John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, the north portion of the island is known for its extensive preserves and the famous fishing and golf resort, the Ocean Reef Club. Key Largo was sparsely populated in 1905 when Henry Flagler’s railroad from Miami came into the area. The railroad turned south and left the north side of Key Largo isolated but early settlers could still access the train at Key Largo station. From there they were able to move into the wilderness of northern Key Largo, a place that remained untamed with few exceptions as Flagler’s railroad opened up the rest of the Keys to development. Due to the isolation, a series of environmental laws resulted in various parks being created. These included John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park established in 1963, Key Largo Hammock State Park which contains one of the largest tracts of West Indian tropical hardwood hammock in the U.S. and Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge with more than 6,000 acres along the eastern shores of Card and Barnes Sounds. Wealthy residents of the Ocean Reef Club contributed to preserving even more natural land in the area that had been slated for large developments. The Ocean Reef Club is certainly the dominant feature of North Key Largo outside of the wilderness preserves. The Club has evolved into one of the premier yacht-club communities in the world. During the Miami land boom of the roaring ’20s, sport fishing became popular in the Upper Keys, and the Dispatch Creek Fishing Camp was established where Ocean Reef is today. In 1945 Morris Baker, a Minneapolis developer, bought the fish camp and built guest rooms. He dredged the original channel and cut canals using the fill to create dry lots. He created Buccaneer Island, a tidal swimming lagoon screened from the sea to keep out sharks and a 2,000-foot airstrip aligned in anticipation of a road once envisioned for access from Key Biscayne to Key Largo. He also built a nine-hole golf course, which required a rock crusher to create a usable base from the rugged Keys soil. By the late 1950s lot values ranged from $4,750 to $17,500. Today’s homes range in the millions of dollars. Whether you’re going to the Ocean Reef Club or to visit one of the remote parks in area, the northern part of Key Largo is a unique part of the Keys. To learn more about history of North Key Largo and other islands in the Keys, check out The Florida Keys A History Through Maps. The book and custom maps of the Keys can be purchased online at this website. Please call Island Map Store with any questions at 239-963-3497.
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Categories: Book Blog

The History of Bimini in The Bahamas

16 Jun
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If you plan to travel to Bimini, be sure to research the latest travel advisories and have any documentation ready. This also applies to the many boaters passing through Bimini to clear customs and obtain their cruising permit. But no matter how you travel to Bimini, you’ll be visiting a country rich in history.

The Bahamas and Bimini were populated by Lucayan Indians when the Spanish arrived. They soon enslaved them to work in the mines of Hispaniola, today’s Dominican Republic and Haiti, exterminating the population. Bimini was northwest of the route first taken by Columbus in 1492 but was likely visited by Ponce de León during his first expedition to Florida in 1513. While de Leon was given credit for discovering Florida in 1513 he did not, a number of earlier maps clearly show the Florida peninsula. He did however name it “La Florida.” Reports of him looking for the Fountain of Youth in Bimini are not supported by the historical record.

Pirates were very real in the Bahamas and in the early 1700s a large community of them took over Nassau from the British. They attacked ships of any nation, but the biggest prize was Spanish galleons using the Gulf Stream off Bimini to return to Spain, laden with treasure from the New World. Pirates no doubt used the shallow waters around Bimini to lie in wait for passing ships.

Wreckers made their living salvaging cargo from ships that sank on the reefs surrounding Bimini. The five founding families of Bimini were licensed wreckers in 1834. This date coincides with British emancipation of slaves in the Bahamas; their descendants make up most of today’s population. Early residents eventually became known as Conchs, making their living off the sea by fishing, sponging, and wrecking. For generations wrecking was one of the few profitable endeavors in The Bahamas but lighthouses soon made wrecks less common. Gun Cay Light was built in 1836 south of Bimini, and Great Isaac Lighthouse in 1859 on a little island twenty miles north of Bimini, which stands more than 150 feet tall, making it one of the tallest in The Bahamas.

The country struggled financially but during the American Civil War the south used the “neutral” British Bahamas to trade cotton for European guns and supplies, which were run past the Union blockade into southern ports. This provided some prosperity. Good times returned during American Prohibition (1920–1933) when liquor was legal in the Bahamas. Bimini and nearby Gun Cay and Cat Cay were waypoints where schooners laden with liquor would anchor, acting as open warehouses for the American rum-runners. The concrete shipwreck seen today south of Bimini, the Sapona, was used to store liquor but was wrecked by a hurricane in 1926 along with the original Bimini Bay Rod and Gun Club which included a large hotel and casino.

Chalk’s Flying Service began flying the Bimini route from Miami in 1919, and service continued until a tragic crash in 2005 killed a number of Bimini residents and doomed what was the world’s oldest airline of the time. Just a year later in 2006 the ‘Compleat’ Angler Hotel burned down, an iconic Bimini landmark that had hosted Ernest Hemingway as he fished for huge Blue Fin tuna that were once abundant.

Today’s Bimini is still host to fisherman and gamblers alike!

To learn more about history of Bimini and other islands in the Bahamas, check out A History of The Bahamas Through Maps. The book can be purchased online at this website. For all questions, please call us at 239-963-3497.

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Categories: Book Blog

The Making of the Keys Book

09 Jun
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Writing history books is hard work, no doubt about it. Everything you write has to be backed up by fact and by experts who edit your work. Then it's off to the printer and for a book with extensive exhibits like ours, a special book bindery. The Florida Keys is my third book, each an extensive and exhausting project.

People ask how I do it with a busy career in Ocean Engineering and the answer is two fold. First is perseverance; I often write between 4 and 8 AM before interruptions start, it's when I do my best work. Second is help; Keys co-authors Brian Schmitt and archaeologist Bob Carr are world experts on the chapters they wrote, I couldn't have done it without them. Finally my experienced staff who turn my ideas into exhibits and my writing into pleasant narrative, it's not easy to make history fun for most people to read.

I also get asked why we do it, that answer varies. My first book Naples Waterfront – Changes in Time was inspired by older clients who built the waterfront communities near my home. They were dying out and over time came to trust me with their old stories, maps and photographs. One old fella had shared rare historical insight with me and the next time I saw him he asked "how's your book coming?" I was embarrassed with little progress to show but when he later died there was no longer a choice. Seven years later the book was published, yep, 7!

The Naples book was more successful than I could have imagined and a Bahamian friend asked if I could do one for his country. I'd worked there for many years and had read every history book I could get my hands on. We'd also made popular maps of the Bahamas, one hangs in U.S. Customs. Five years later A History of The Bahamas Through Maps was born, yep, 5.

The Keys book began when my friend Brian Schmitt half jokingly suggested my next should be on the Keys, he liked the Bahamas. I said sure, also in jest, knowing what a gargantuan task that would be. Brian and I both collect antique maps and his famous 1591 version of Florida is on the Naples book cover. His map collection is much better than mine, world class in fact. When he agreed to do the mapping chapter our jokes became reality and yet another book was born, but this time not without drama.

While we worked on the Keys I was asked to speak at the annual Miami Map Fair, the largest antique map show in the world. Since the Keys book was due out about the same time as the Fair I suggested we announce something featured in the book, that Ponce de Leon did not discover Florida in 1513 as is written. There are Ponce de Leon streets, monuments and school book references, so we were being bold to challenge Florida history. Our proof lies in the fact a half dozen maps pre-dating 1513 show the Florida peninsula. Some of these are featured in the Keys book so we needed it for back up at the Map Fair if I was to make the statement.

The drama to deliver the book on time started when our printer suddenly passed away over Christmas in Canada. His widow said they couldn't honor the deadline, the book wouldn't be done on schedule.

Soon I was in Toronto working with the widow to help get it done since hints of our revisionary history statement had already been released to the press. I visited the giant printing press and met the employees who were already working on the book, they were great. First lesson, if the factory is behind schedule, go there. The possibility of meeting the deadline emerged but there was another critical step.

Nashville has one of the few facilities in America that can produce a binding that allows a book to lay flat when opened. This was needed for our map overlays, a first for the Keys.

Suddenly I was in Nashville meeting the employees of the bindery. They had just started working on our piece, of course, refer to First lesson. Spending a few days there moved the process along since I could answer questions quickly, but the due date was fast approaching with an outcome still uncertain. Only after a second trip to Nashville a couple weeks later did I finally hold copies of the book in hand for the Miami press conference. The second trip took driving 2,000 miles in four days, a feat I hadn't done since my 20s. My reward was falling in love with Nashville's incredible music scene with one too many Titos & Tonics. My punishment was driving home the next day.

That's the story of how we made the Keys book, it arrived just in time for COVID-19 to shut down of the Map Fair. We still had the press conference which was attended by a single Miami Herald reporter and photographer. They did a really nice article, but our book launch didn’t get the momentum we hoped for due to a worldwide struggle with the pandemic.

The Keys History book is our best work yet and word is slowly getting out with good reviews. It will, however, likely be my last non-fiction since taking years to produce them sucks the life right out of you. I'm now working on a historical fiction now with wild stories to tell, we'll see how that goes.

You can find more information about the Keys book on this website.

Todd Turrell

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Categories: Book Blog

The History of Cay Sal in The Bahamas

02 Jun
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The Cay Sal Bank is one of my favorite places in the Bahamas from many perspectives. It’s an extremely remote area with pristine wildlife but no public access unless you have a boat, or a helicopter! We have had fabulous trips for work and exploration on many of the islands around Cay Sal, and the Bank has turned into a favorite vacation destination. Marathon, in the Florida Keys, is fifty-five miles to the north with Cuba lying half that distance to the south. You have to clear Bahamian customs to be legal before you go, but the nearest facilities are in Bimini or Cat Cay, well over 100 miles away. Cay Sal, meaning “salt cay” in Spanish, was discovered during exploration of the New World and is depicted on many of the first maps. The island has an interior lagoon where s ea salt could be easily produced by solar evaporation and there are records of the Spanish doing just that. An 1824 English map also shows “Salt Rakers Hutts” on the island when it was a British possession. Salt was in great demand as a preservative prior to refrigeration; it was used to preserve meat, seafood and many other commodities. In 1839 a lighthouse was built by England’s Imperial Lighthouse Service 15 miles north of Cay Sal on Elbow Cay. The location was strategic to Gulf Stream shipping, warning vessels off the Bank which has claimed many ship wrecks ov er the years. The remains of ships can still be seen in shallow water. In the early 1950s the Cay Sal Aeromarine Club was formed with Sir Roland Symonette as the Bahamian partner and Ernest Hemingway included on the American side. The Club burgee is shown at the top of the page. The island was used an exclusive fishing destination with part of the lagoon dredged for a marina and the fill used to create an airstrip. The last remaining structure was used by the Bahamas Defense Force up to the early 1990s, it has since been burned down. The island is less than thirty miles off the Cuban coast and was ideal for spying on the new communist regime after the Cuban revolution around 1960. This is when Howard Hughes became the final member of the Aeromarine Club and suddenly American missions to oust Castro were being launched from the island. The remote nature has left the Cay Sal Bank exposed to poaching by nations including Honduras. Two “motherships” from that nation were caught in the 1990s poaching fish, turtles and crawfish (lobster). The incident turned into an international affair when Bahamian police officers placed on the arrested vessels were taken hostage by the Hondurans as they fled for home port. American jets were scrambled in pursuit and the Bahamians were eventually released unharmed. To learn more about history of Cay Sal and other islands in the Bahamas, check out A History of The Bahamas Through Maps. The book can be purchased online on this website. For all questions, please call us at 239-963-3497.
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