Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival

This weekend was the annual Cortez Commercial Fishing Festival, in the fishing community of Cortez, of course. Lots of people, lots of seafood, some music, some art, and a nice time. We had peel-and-eat shrimp down on the fish house docks, while watching the pelicans, seagulls, and egrets stir up a ruckus. MoJo (Morris Johnson)'s paintings made me smile. He's a clam farmer and a folk artist, and with that combination, I suspect a sense of humor comes in handy.

Here is the 1912 Cortez Rural Graded Schoolhouse, once used as a school, then as an art school, and as the home and studio of weaver Robert Sailors. In 1999, Manatee County purchased the school, and recently renovations were completed. It is now the home of the Florida Maritime Museum.














Here's a boat used by Cuban refugees to cross the Straits of Florida. It's been fixed up by the craftsmen at the museum's boat works- you can see a "before" picture on their website.


















The festival is a great time to visit Cortez, but then, any day is. Stop by sometime and visit the museum, learn how to make a wooden boat, have lunch at the docks, and take some fresh seafood home for dinner.

Anna Maria Island City Pier

In the early 1890s, George Emerson Bean of Connecticut set up a homestead on the northern end of Anna Maria Island, looking across salt water to Egmont Key, at the mouth of Tampa Bay. In 1911 George's son George started the Anna Maria Beach Company along with John Roser (more about him later), beginning commercial development of the island. One of the first steps was to build a city pier on the bay side of the island, where excursion steamers from Tampa could unload passengers.

The City Pier is still a popular spot for tourists, day trippers, and local fishermen.

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Further Reading

Visiting Small-Town Florida (Revised Edition) by Bruce Hunt (Pineapple Press, 2003)

A Historical Geography of Southwest Florida Waterways: Volume One, Anna Maria Sound to Lemon Bay (Sea Grant Florida, 2000)

Florida News Stories

"The Strawberry Schools" (Tampa Tribune, April 6, 2008): "We started in April and ended in December. The three-month break from January to March was timed for when the strawberries ripened. Children were needed to help pick the crops. On small family farms, everybody had to work to make a living."

"Bring back Jack!" (St. Petersburg Times, April 2, 2008): "If we lived in Florida, we'd reach out the back door and pick oranges for breakfast. We'd catch fish in the canal behind the house. Coconuts, Bea! We'll have our own coconut tree!''

"Historic fishing shacks of bygone days" (The News-Press, March 29, 2008): "Norton’s shack — where he fished for mullet and pompano by night and tended nets by day, where he waited for boats to bring food and where he ultimately died — still stands in Pine Island Sound more than 80 years after it was built. "

"The Ghosts of Al Lang" (Tampa Tribune, Special Report) Al Lang Field and Spring Training in St. Petersburg

"Ruth And Gehrig At Home In St. Petersburg" (Tampa Tribune, March 23, 2008) ""I think a lot of people here sit on this rooftop and wonder what was going on back then in those penthouse suites," says Marsha Reynolds, a Flori-de-Leon resident and co-chairman of its Heritage Committee."

"As Kissimmee celebrates its 125th anniversary, its identity is changing" (Orlando Sentinel, March 24, 2008) "But as ranches give way to housing developments, the small community that turns 125 years old this week is struggling with an identity crisis: balancing the cow-town image (and the jokes that come with it) while trying to shift toward a more sophisticated reputation as a cosmopolitan town next to Walt Disney World."

"Flavor of Key West supports a struggling Florida industry" (Herald Tribune, March 16, 2008) "At the Eaton Street Seafood Market in the historic district, a long glass case displayed a who's who of the city's seafood scene: plump piles of pinks (the local shrimp) snuggled next to a yellowtail snapper, a mound of stone crab claws and fresh slabs of grouper."