Residential community in Florida, US
This article is about the community in Florida. For other uses, see
Boca grande
.
Boca Grande
is a small residential community on
Gasparilla Island
in southwest
Florida
. Gasparilla Island is a part of both
Charlotte
and
Lee
counties, while the actual village of Boca Grande, which is home to many seasonal and some year-round residents, is entirely in the Lee County portion of the island. It is part of the
Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area
. Boca Grande is known for its historic downtown, sugar sand beaches, blue water and world class fishing.
Overview
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]
Its name - Spanish for "Big Mouth" - comes from the mouth of the waterway, called Boca Grande Pass, separating the southern tip of the island from
Cayo Costa
. The
pass
was used as a busy shipping point for many years, as the waters in the pass are naturally deep. Processed
phosphate
from the
Bone Valley
region was loaded onto waiting ocean-going cargo vessels via the
Seaboard Air Line Railroad
at the dock located on the southern tip of the island. Shipping business to the island declined in the late 1970s, as it was no longer cost effective to ship phosphate by rail to Boca Grande when it could be loaded at
Tampa
. The phosphate plant at Boca Grande was old and its tons-per-hour rate was slow. Therefore, it made economic sense to discontinue the operation. Evidence of the island's industrial past can still be seen.
[
citation needed
]
There are no gas stations in the village of Boca Grande, with the exception of a street pump at Boca Grande Marina, so many residents use
golf carts
as their main mode of transportation. A Lee County ordinance designates all but two streets as golf cart paths. Drivers must be at least 14 years old to operate a golf cart on these designated streets.
[
citation needed
]
Boca Grande provided the backdrop for
Denzel Washington
's movie,
Out of Time
, where the quiet village was renamed "Banyan Key" in reference to the
banyan
trees that populate the island. Scenes for the
2006 film
based on
Carl Hiaasen
's book
Hoot
were also filmed on the island, which was again renamed for the filming. This time it became "Coconut Cove".
[
citation needed
]
Boca Grande's serene beauty makes it a destination for high-profile weddings and residences for the elite seeking privacy.
Sara Blakely
(Spanx founder and owner) and
Jesse Itzler
were married on Boca Grande in 2008, while the
Bush family
and
Audrey Hepburn
have called it home seasonally.
[
citation needed
]
Hurricane Charley
hit Boca Grande heavily on August 13, 2004, causing some US$20 billion worth of damage to
Southwest Florida
. There were no deaths or injuries on the island, but many buildings and numerous banyan trees were heavily damaged.
[
citation needed
]
History
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]
Gasparilla Island's first known inhabitants were the
Calusa
people. They were living on nearby Useppa Island by 5,000 BC and on Gasparilla Island by 800 or 900 AD.
Charlotte Harbor
was the center of the Calusa Empire, which numbered thousands of people and hundreds of fishing villages. The Calusa were a hunting and fishing people who perfected the art of
maritime
living in harmony with the environment. They were a politically powerful people, dominating Southwest Florida during their "golden age". Since the Calusa had no written language, the only record of their lifestyle and ceremonies comes from the oral history of the (much later)
Seminoles
, from written accounts of Spanish explorers, and from the archaeological record. The first contact the Calusa had with Europeans came during Spanish explorations at the beginning of the 16th century. By the mid-18th century, the Calusa had all but disappeared, the victims of European diseases, slavery and warfare.
Just like the Calusa, the next settlers came to Gasparilla Island to fish. By the late 1870s several fish ranches were operating in the Charlotte Harbor area. One of them would later be at the north end of Gasparilla Island in the small village of Gasparilla. The fishermen, many of them
Spanish
or
Cuban
, caught large quantities of
mullet
and other fish and salted them down for shipment to
Havana
and other markets. In the 1940s the Gasparilla Fishery was moved to
Placida
across the bay, where it still stands, and the fishing village died out. Many of Boca Grande's early fishing families are still represented in third-, fourth- and fifth-generation descendants who pursue many different vocations, including fishing.
In 1885, phosphate rock was discovered on the banks of the
Peace River
just above
Punta Gorda
, east of Gasparilla Island across Charlotte Harbor. It was this discovery that would turn the south end of Gasparilla Island into a major deep-water port (Boca Grande Pass is one of the deepest natural inlets in Florida) and become responsible for the development of the town of Boca Grande. Wealthy American and British sportsmen began discovering the Charlotte Harbor area for its fishing (notably for the world-class
tarpon
) and hunting. It was these two discoveries ? phosphate rock and fishing - that would "put Boca Grande on the map".
Phosphate was a valuable mineral for fertilizers and many other products, and was in great demand worldwide. At first the phosphate was barged down the Peace River to Port Boca Grande, where it was loaded onto
schooners
for worldwide shipment. By 1905 it was felt that building a railroad to Port Boca Grande and carrying the phosphate to it by rail would improve the method of shipment.
In 1905, officials of the Agrico subsidiary Peace River Mining Company, along with engineers from the
Army Corps of Engineers
and 60 laborers, landed on Gasparilla Island, and surveying and construction of the railroad began. Probably the only buildings on the south end of the island at this time were the lighthouse and the assistant keeper's house. The railroad terminus with its 1,000-foot-long (300 m) pier would be built nearby. The Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railroad was completed in 1907. For the next 50 years phosphate was shipped out of the state-of-the-art port virtually without disruption. Phosphate-laden trains were off-loaded directly onto ocean-going freighters, and the ships took the valuable commodity to ports all over the world. In 1969 Port Boca Grande ranked as the fourth-busiest port in Florida.
In the 1970s, phosphate companies increasingly switched their interest to ports in
Hillsborough
and
Manatee
counties. As more money was put into developing these ports, traffic into Port Boca Grande began to dwindle, and in 1979 the line was abandoned and the phosphate industry in Boca Grande came to an end. The port was also used as an oil storage terminal by Florida Power and Light Company. This use ceased in 2001. The oil storage tanks were subsequently removed from the 9-acre (36,000 m
2
) site at the southern tip of Gasparilla Island adjacent to the 120-year-old
Boca Grande Lighthouse
. Island residents have begun an effort to have the property preserved as part of the island's state park system.
The
Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway
not only brought phosphate and supplies to Gasparilla Island; it also brought wealthy people from the north. By 1910 Boca Grande Pass was already famous for its unequaled tarpon fishing among fishermen, who stayed on nearby
Useppa Island
. The Agrico Company, having begun to see the potential of developing Gasparilla Island beyond the port, began to develop the village of Boca Grande.
The
railroad station
in what would become downtown was built; roads, sidewalks, streetlights, shops, a post office, and water and telephone service were not far behind. The town was landscaped, including the now famous section of Second Street called Banyan Street. The railroad company built several cottages downtown, and a few wealthy families from "up north" purchased land and built winter residences. The train stopped at Gasparilla, the fishing village at the north end of the island, at the railroad depot in downtown Boca Grande, and at the south end phosphate terminal.
In 1911, the first hotel, the
Gasparilla Inn
, opened, and the island became a major vacation destination for the elite from
Tampa
,
Fort Myers
,
[1]
and
New England
. Though shipping has declined substantially since the last quarter of the 20th century, tourism remains important to the island's economy.
In 1925, the Seaboard Air Line Railroad bought the assets and property of the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway, but it took the
Interstate Commerce Commission
three years to approve it, and the SAL finally merged with the CH&N in 1928. The Tampa to Boca Grande passenger train was still operated every day, along with a fast freight between Boca Grande and
Plant City
, until the SCL era slowly killed the port, forcing all phosphate traffic to
Tampa Bay
.
In 1929 the Boca Grande Hotel was built just south of the Boca Grande city center. It was a three-story, brick resort hotel where most of the island weathered the
hurricane of 1944
. The Boca Grande Hotel changed hands and was demolished in 1975. When attempt was made to demolish the hotel with explosives, it was unsuccessful. In total, explosive demolition was attempted three times. Finally, it took six months to raze the building by means of fire and the
wrecking ball
, as it had been built to withstand fire and great storms.
The railroad continued to bring winter visitors from all along the
eastern seaboard
and
upper Midwest
until the
Boca Grande Causeway
opened in 1958. The
swing bridge
spans two 80-foot-wide (24 m) channels on the
Gulf Intracoastal Waterway
at Placida Harbor. It was built from 1952 to 1958 to replace a ferry service. When the bridge became operational, it was faster to fly to Tampa and drive to Boca Grande than it was to take the train directly from the
Northeast
and
Midwest
. Rail passenger service to Boca Grande ended on April 12, 1959.
The depot was restored in the 1970s, and a number of shops, offices and a restaurant now occupy the old building. The railroad continued to run work trains to the south end until the phosphate port closed in 1979. The rail line between
Arcadia
and Boca Grande was abandoned in 1981. Thanks to the generosity of Bayard and Hugh Sharp (members of the
Du Pont family
who had been winter residents for many years), the community purchased the old railroad bed from CSX Corp. (the successor corporation to the old Chessie and Seaboard systems) and transformed it into a new use?Boca Grande's popular
Bike Path
. Boca Grande has always been a unique community, with a large number of wealthy winter residents rubbing elbows with the fishermen and railroad and port workers who formed the permanent, year-round working population.
Fishing
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The Boca Grande Pass is considered one of the world's best tarpon fishing spots.
[2]
Tarpon congregate and spawn out of passes along most of the entire rim of the Gulf of Mexico. The massive attraction to Boca Grande Pass is unknown and subject to many theories. In the spring, it appears that many of the fish's habits all along the coast are in orientation to Boca Grande Pass. With depths reaching near 80 feet (24 m), it is the deepest natural pass in Florida. It is the only major outlet of Charlotte Harbor, which is fed by two major rivers, the Peace and the
Myakka
. As the bottleneck of the harbor, the currents are strong and serve as an underwater highway for many species of fish and bait.
Harpooning
tarpon is documented back to the late 1700s by British settlers. There is some debate among historians on who caught the first tarpon on rod and reel in Florida. The fish gained fame from an 1885 story published in the magazine
Forest and Stream
. The article detailed an event that took place on March 12, 1885, when a New Yorker named W.H. Wood landed a 93-pound tarpon at the mouth of the Caloosahatchee River. While it may have not been the first tarpon caught on rod and reel, the fish's capture generated much publicity and is at least credited as exposing tarpon fishing to the world. Soon after, tarpon were given a
game fish
status to protect them from harpoons (known as "striking" or "graining") and nets that were common methods of taking tarpon.
In the late 1890s, a then-modern railway system was completed that gave the area access to the outside world. Soon sportsmen from the north as well as from Britain flocked to the area in quest for giant tarpon. Southwest Florida and the
Florida Keys
soon became the new headquarters of the sport fishing world. Fishing tourism grew even bigger when in 1908
Barron Collier
built a "Tarpon Inn" on Gasparilla Island and made the island's town of Boca Grande world-famous as the "Tarpon Fishing Capital of the World".
Demographics
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In 2012, Boca Grande reported a population of 1,705 citizens. The median age of Boca Grande is 66.
[3]
Gallery
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-
Looking north down Park Avenue
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Banyan Street (The new tree front-right is due to damage from Hurricane Charley)
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Former Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway Depot; now a restaurant/shopping/office complex
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Fire Department
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United Methodist Church
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Boca Grande Community Center
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Gasparilla Inn & Club
References
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External links
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26°44′56″N
82°15′43″W
/
26.74889°N 82.26194°W
/
26.74889; -82.26194
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