Power

In 1955 Florida Power Corporation bought the northern part of Weedon Island and built a power plant there. The power plant property includes some of the prehistoric mounds, the former Weedon house site, and a 1930s movie studio. The power company used the movie studio as a warehouse until it burned in 1963. The power plant is now Progress Energy's Bartow Power Plant.

Here's a glimpse of the power plant through the mangroves along Gandy Boulevard:

If you were to take a few steps further towards the water and look to the east across Old Tampa Bay, you'd see the Interbay Peninsula, home to South Tampa, Port Tampa, and MacDill Air Force Base.

Squint a bit, and you'll see a very large airplane landing at MacDill AFB.

Today MacDill Air Force Base is home to the 6th Air Mobility Wing, U.S. Central Command, and the headquarters of the U.S. Special Operations Command, along with 51 other Mission Partners. Nearly seventy years ago it was a brand new base, training pilots for World War II. Base commander on December 7, 1941, was General Clarence Tinker, also known as the first Native American to become a Major General in the United States Army. Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma was named in his honor.

How Doth the Little Crocodile

"American Voices" on The Onion today is "Florida Crocs Make Nuclear Comeback." (The Onion is a satirical parody of American news publications -- you can read more about it in general, and about its American Voices feature in particular in Wikipedia's The Onion entry.)

Satire and parody require some basis in reality. So. There really are crocodiles at FPL's Turkey Point nuclear power plant south of Miami. Since it began operation in 1972, the plant's cooling water canals have proven to be good homes for American crocodiles.

In March 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Commission reclassified the American crocodile as a threatened rather than endangered species, at least it the crocodile's South Florida range. (You can read the official final rule here).

Crocodile fact sheet (pdf) from FPL-Turkey Point Plant.

April 21, 2007, story on NPR's All Things Considered -- "American Crocodiles Make a Comeback"

(and Thanks to Lewis Carroll.)