It takes 16 miles to drive between Jewfish Creek and Tavernier Creek, the space the Abroad Freeway travels throughout Key Largo. The biggest of the Florida Keys, the island has a wealth of tales to inform, and its farming historical past is one which shouldn’t be missed.
Earlier than the islands had been a fishing or trip vacation spot, the Keys had been populated with farming communities. One crop for which they turned well-known was pineapples. The primary to develop the candy, juicy fruit commercially was a Key West wrecker named Ben Baker – wrecking was the enterprise of salvaging ships, crews, passengers and cargo in peril. Baker was as soon as hailed because the King of the Florida Wreckers.
Benjamin Baker was born on Inexperienced Turtle Cay, Abaco, in 1818. He married Catherine S. Albury, a Bahamian born in Eleuthera. Their marriage was fruitful, and delivered 11 kids.
After the arrival of their third baby, someday between 1847 and 1848, the rising household left the Bahamas, sailed throughout the Straits of Florida and into the harbor at Key West.
They lived in a two-story home on the nook of Caroline and Whitehead streets. By 1850, Baker had established the Baker Wrecking Firm and himself as a Florida wrecker. It was not his solely job; he and his sons had been pineapple farmers, too. It was the late 1850s when Baker sailed for the Higher Keys and cleared land on Plantation Key and Key Largo.
When the fields had been prepared, Baker left for Havana and bought as many as 6,000 pineapple slips and suckers to plant on his lands. A firsthand account of his operation, written by Dr. J.B. Holder, appeared in an 1871 version of Harper’s Weekly: “Plantation Key has appreciable good soil; lots of the timber listed here are seventy or eighty ft in top. Right here was a big plantation of cocoa-nut palms, a number of hundred in quantity, and a patch of younger pineapples. A late paper offers the account of the merchandise of his patch, which have been materially elevated for the reason that author was there. Mr. Baker, the proprietor, who resides at Key West, is reported to have realized seven thousand {dollars} this season from his crop of pine-apples. The good downside is the prevalence of mosquitoes, all through the entire yr, in such swarms that few individuals are prepared to endure
the annoyance; in any other case these keys would richly reward the cultivator.”
At this time, the $7,000 Baker earned from his pineapple fields from that season’s haul can be price about $150,000. Along with Baker’s Plantation Key pineapple patch, his Key Largo homestead was situated within the space of what’s now MM 97.
On the Key Largo web site, Baker constructed a house and operated his wrecking enterprise, at the very least part-time, from the Key Largo anchorage. In keeping with the 1870 U.S. Census, Baker was recorded as one in all 61 individuals residing on Key Largo. It was additionally the yr that the island’s first submit workplace opened. Baker filed the petition, indicating it could serve 17 households. It was not known as the Key Largo Submit Workplace however the Cayo Largo Submit Workplace.
Early Spanish charts famous the island as Cayo de Dose Leguas or Key of Twelve Leagues. In William Roberts’ First Discovery and Pure Historical past of Florida (1763), it was recognized as “Cayo Largo O Doce Legues.” J.W. Norie, in his Piloting Instructions for the Gulf of Florida, the Bahama Banks & Islands (1828), wrote: “Cayo Largo affords no residing creature, besides raccoons and bugs, particularly these troublesome ones, mosquitoes and scorpions.”
When driving over Key Largo and down the freeway, the place a large median separates the southbound and northbound lanes, you’ll cross an old style, an outdated home and the realm the place, in 1977, sightings of Florida’s favourite cryptid made native headlines.
Close to MM 98, the street passes via land as soon as owned by William Dunham and Mary Jane Albury. Like many pioneers who carved out a lifestyle within the Florida Keys, they left the Bahamas and settled in Key West. In 1886, the Alburys, together with their three-week-old son William Beauregard, moved up the island chain to the Rock Harbor space of Key Largo. The household farmed pineapples till a blight and competitors from Cuban farmers took its toll on the Keys’ pineapple trade.
The Alburys changed their pineapple fields with groves of Key lime timber. Within the early Twenties, they donated land from the groves to the Monroe County College District for a brand new college, the two-room, coral rock Rock Harbor Grammar College – constructed circa 1924. As you drive previous the constructing, its coral “bones” can nonetheless be seen at what’s now the Key Largo Moose Lodge (within the median close to MM 98).
Slightly south of the old fashioned is the house base of a neighborhood nonprofit group devoted to selling coral reef consciousness, the Reef Environmental Training Basis. Circa 1912, William and Beauregard Albury constructed the conch-style picket home. It was one of many first native houses to have screened-in home windows. At this time, it’s the oldest construction on Key Largo standing in its authentic locale.
At MM 97, on the bayside of the freeway, is Baker’s Cay. If the title sounds acquainted, it ought to. The resort, constructed on land as soon as owned by the person who launched pineapple farming to the Florida Keys, was named to honor Captain Ben Baker.
Since you by no means know what you would possibly see within the Florida Keys, again in the summertime of 1977, individuals reported seeing a Skunk Ape within the space of Snapper’s Restaurant close to MM 94. What’s a Skunk Ape? It’s the Sunshine State’s favourite cryptid, Florida’s model of Bigfoot.
The occasion lasted two weeks. It wasn’t the one one, both. The truth is, only a few weeks in the past, I used to be contacted by somebody who wasn’t positive what he noticed till he walked previous my guide, “The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Information,” on show at Robbie’s of Islamorada and exclaimed to his spouse, “That’s it, that’s what I noticed!”
Keep in mind to maintain your eyes peeled when driving via the Florida Keys; there’s a lot to see, and a few of it’s completely breathtaking. Extra importantly, take note of the street; the opposite individuals driving could be distracted, too.