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4 days ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
On Windley Key, the highway travels 2.5 miles between its bridges. The island is home to some revealing stories. However, to get there from the north, you must first cross the Snake Creek Bridge, the last drawbridge left in the Keys. The single-leaf bascule bridge, which opened in 1981, is run by a bridge tender who, once an hour, when needed, stops traffic and raises the metal grate so a boat can pass.
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1 week ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
Cornelius Pinder was a Key Largo farmer born in the Bahamas circa 1862. At age 12, on June 18, 1874, he became a U.S. citizen. When the 1880 census was taken, Cornelius was identified as a cigar maker living in Key West. If he hadn’t started farming by 1880, it was coming soon. The June 11, 1884, edition of the Deland Florida Agriculturalist noted: “Mr. Cornelius Pinder brought into market this week 134 pines averaging 9.5 pounds apiece.
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3 weeks ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
It takes 16 miles to drive between Jewfish Creek and Tavernier Creek, the distance the Overseas Highway travels across Key Largo. The largest of the Florida Keys, the island has a wealth of stories to tell, and its farming history is one that shouldn’t be overlooked. Before the islands were a fishing or vacation destination, the Keys were populated with farming communities. One crop for which they became famous was pineapples.
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3 weeks ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
The modern Overseas Highway travels over the right-of-way that delivered Henry Flagler’s train to Key West – for the most part. It wasn’t always that way. When the first version, State Road 4A, opened in 1927, it paralleled the tracks in places but also traveled a much different route – especially through the Lower Keys. After crossing Cudjoe Key and Bow Channel Bridge, the old road arrived at Sugarloaf Key and went through what is today the parking lot of Mangrove Mama’s restaurant.
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1 month ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
Torchwood is a tree that grows in South Florida, the Keys, Mexico and the Caribbean. It reaches about 15 feet, though it can grow a little taller. A member of the citrus family, torchwood blooms with small clusters of fragrant white flowers that give off a strong perfume. The fruit is a drupe, a fleshy fruit like a cherry or an apricot that turns purplish black when it ripens. Birds love torchwood fruit. People can eat it, too.
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1 month ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, kraal is defined as “1) an African and especially a southern African village in which a group of dwellings surrounds a livestock enclosure; 2) an enclosure for animals, especially in southern Africa.”Kraals were used in the Florida Keys to pen turtles. Some can still be seen at the Key West Bight, on the docks at the end of Margaret Street.
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1 month ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
The island was called Ellis Island by the cartographer DeBramn in 1772. It was not the name that stuck. In Gerdes’1849 pamphlet, Reconnaissance of the Florida Reef and all the Keys, he wrote: “The string of islands from Tom’s Island to the West, except the last, larger one, is called Grassy Islands.”Assuming the last, larger one was Key Vaca, Grassy Islands was not quite the name that stuck, either. When Charles Smith conducted the official government survey in 1872, he labeled it Grassy Key.
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1 month ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
When Islamorada developed, it was a railroad town. People like to say otherwise. They tell stories about Spanish conquistadors sailing past and declaring Islamorada the Purple Isles. How the color purple was chosen depends on who is telling the story. Sometimes, the inspirational hue comes from the water, bougainvillea bracts, or Janthina janthina, commonly called the violet sea snail. There are other variations of the colorful story. According to the man who created the name, none is true.
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2 months ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
Tavernier is a small community found on the southern tip of Key Largo. It was not the first to develop along this neck of the island. Decades earlier, a farming community called Planter occupied the Atlantic edge. Pineapples, tomatoes and melons were among the commercial crops they farmed. Hurricanes and the arrival of the Key West Extension of Henry Flagler’s East Coast Railway hastened the demise of Planter.
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2 months ago | 
keysweekly.com | Brad Bertelli
To help make ends meet, I work at a shack next to the marina at Robbie’s of Islamorada a couple of days a week. I pour local beers and muddle fresh lime and mint for what I’m told are some pretty tasty mojitos. While standing behind the little bar with five plastic stools and chatting as I pour people drinks, I am not infrequently asked if I live here. It is a fair question. I do. We were lucky and bought a little house the last time the market crashed.
