Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal VOL. 21 NO. 2 WINTER 2010/11 USS SHARK OFFICIAL QUARTERLY PUBLICATION OF THE KEY WEST MARITIME HISTORICAL SOCIETY The Crossing at Knights Key and The Island Community of Pigeon Key By Thomas Neil Knowles Copyright 2011 “In memory of Edith “Billie” Chesser Hancock (1933-2011) whose memories and family information inspired and enhanced this article.” Smoke from Civil War battlefields had barely cleared when the president of the International Ocean Telegraph Company, General W. F. “Baldy” Smith, dispatched a survey party into the wilds of South Florida. After years of negotiations a forty-year agreement had finally been worked out with the government of Spain, giving the company an exclusive cable landing on the western coast of Cuba. The logical place to cross the Florida Straits was the narrow, 90- mile-wide gap between Key West Florida in 1866. Photo credit: the Author. and Havana. Now the problem a submarine cable laid from Key the chain of islands that formed was to find the best route to bring West to Punta Rassa, a spit of land the eastern rim of the Florida Keys. the cable from Key West to the at the mouth of the Caloosahachee Water openings between the islands mainland of Florida and the IOTC River near Fort Myers on the would be crossed by driving steel telegraph system at Lake City. For west coast of Florida. From there piles into the submerged bedrock that task Baldy Smith hired a highly landlines would carry the signal to and installing wooden telegraph respected civil engineer, J. C. Bailey Lake City. The competing route poles into the ends of the piles that of Toronto. would use landlines from Lake City protruded above the high water Bailey was told to explore two down to Fort Dallas (later known (Continued on page 3) promising routes. One would use as Miami) then continue across Society News and Notes by John Viele The Florida Keys Sea Heritage Journal is published quarterly. Subscription is available through membership. Copyright 2011 by the Key West Maritime Historical Society of the Florida Keys, Inc. Submarine Squadron 12 at U.S. Naval Station about 1970. Photo credit: Monroe The art on the masthead, the USS County Library. Shark, was drawn by Bill Muir. Tom Hambright Honored replace him He’s truly a treasure.” Tom Hambright, Society Tom said, “I can’t imagine doing a Editor: Tom Hambright Board Member, Treasurer, and job I didn’t love, I will keep doing Sea Heritage Journal Editor, was this as long as my brain keeps honored by the Monroe County working and the body holds out. It’s Letters and articles are welcome. Commission for his 25 years of still fun.” Please write to: Editor, Florida Keys service as head of the Florida Sea Heritage Journal, KWMHS, P.O. History Room at the Key West Truman Waterfront Historical Box 695, Key West, FL 33041. Public Library and as Monroe Markers County Historian. He has been Ed Little, Society President and Key West Maritime Historical Society of inestimable help to reporters, John Viele are collaborating on the Board of Directors historians, government officials, design, text, and photographs of genealogists, and many others. the first of a series of signs to be President: Edward J.Little,Jr. Norma Kula, director of the Monroe installed at the Truman Waterfront. Vice President: Bill Verge County Public Library, has said The first sign will tell the history of Secretary: Corey Malcom of him, “There’s no one who can the Key West U.S Naval Station Treasurer: Tom Hambright Thank You from the Editor wife, Lynda, who worked with for The Key West Citizen’s Andrea Comstock 17 year, Betty Bruce who founded articles and the community’s George Craig the Florida Room in the 1960s, the acknowledgement of my 25 years Bill Grosscup support of the Key West Library staff as Monroe County Historian was Tom Hambright and the tax payers and government humbling and satisfying experience. Mary Haffenreffer of Monroe County who funded and It was gratifying to have people John Jones operated the Library system for the stop me on the street to express Sheri Lohr past 51 years. Thank you for a great their satisfaction with the service Joan Langley 25 years, I hope to be here for a few provided by the Monroe County Julie McEnroe more years. Library and the Florida Room. Bill Verge What I have accomplished would have been impossible without my Tom Hambright New Member Shirley & L.T. Perpall, Key West. 2 - FLORIDA KEYS SEA HERITAGE JOURNAL - WINTER 2010/11 (Pigeon Key from page 1) mark. Although the Punta Rassa route was selected, the survey of the Keys route had some benefit. When Bailey conveyed his findings to the company in 1866 he included comments on the feasibility of constructing a rail line to Key West. The coordination of rail traffic required ready access to telegraph service so, this was relevant to his analysis. There had been great interest in providing rail service to Key West, which in 1860 was one of the wealthiest cities per capita in the United States. Bailey’s résumé included extensive railroad work and his determination that the project was a viable proposition was welcomed by proponents. The civil engineer believed construction of the railroad would be straightforward except at several The Florida East Coast Railway crossing ran between Knights Key and Little major waterways that carried tidal Duck Key. Photo credit: the Author. flows between the Gulf of Mexico and the Straits of Florida. He two small islands situated in the Keys where larger vessels can identified the broad expanse of waterway. Money Key’s name access Florida Bay from the Florida water between Knights Key and derived from the rumored discovery Straits. Little Duck Key (now Pacet Key) of pieces of eight on the island. Constructing the Crossing as the most difficult and expensive Pigeon Key is believed to have When Henry Flagler approved to cross. been named by Spanish explorers the project to extend rail service to Located 40 miles east of Key who were impressed by the large Key West in 1904, his Florida East West, the seven-mile-wide water flocks of white-crowned pigeons Coast Railway (FECR) terminated opening feeds a part of Florida Bay they found in the area. two miles southeast of Homestead that was known to local fishermen Stretching almost across at Florida City. Construction of and spongers as Money Key Lake Florida Bay, the lakes merge at the Key West Extension began in and Pigeon Key Lake (see above). their southern ends into a channel 1905. The planned route took the They are not lakes in the traditional having a breadth of a half mile and line across 19 miles of the eastern sense, but are areas of deeper water an average depth of over 20 feet. Everglades to Jewfish Creek, a surrounded by shallow banks or Named Moser Channel, it is one of navigable waterway that separates flats. the few passages along the Florida (Continued on page 4) In the late 1800s Money Key Lake had a typical depth of 9 to 10 The label “Knights Key” has been used on U.S. Coast & Geodetic feet while Pigeon Key Lake was a Survey charts to identify the island immediately west of Hog Key and little deeper at 11 to 12 feet. Beds related water features such as “Knights Key Channel and Knights Key of wool, yellow, grass, and glove Harbor.” Some writers have used the term “Knight’s Key.” In this sponges of superior quality thrived article the island and related features are indicated by “Knights Key,” in the lakes and the adjacent Knights the name used in the right-of-away maps and company literature of Key Channel until over-harvesting the Florida East Coast Railway, by historian Jefferson Browne, and by depleted them. many natives of the Florida Keys. The lakes were named after WINTER 2010/11 - FLORIDA KEYS SEA HERITAGE JOURNAL - 3 The crossing consisted of four major structures. Photo credit: the Author. (Pigeon Key from 3) across Pigeon Key to connect the eastern end to clear a trestle that ran straightaways. The small island under it. The viaduct across Pacet the mainland from the Florida Keys. provided the firm foundation Channel was a concrete spandrel From there the rails traversed 29 required to resist the enormous structure with graceful arches. islands and 43 waterways to reach forces that can be exerted when the The trestle running under Key West. Water covered 37 miles heavy mass of a train makes a turn. the Knights Key Bridge led to a of the 106 mile route, but extensive Construction of the crossing mammoth, stand-alone wooden fills, particularly in the Upper Keys, was divided into four segments dock built by the FECR to serve reduced the amount of bridging to identified as the Knights Key as a temporary port for ocean- 17 miles. The waterway between Bridge, Pigeon Key Bridge, Moser going ships carrying cement, Knights Key and Little Duck Key, Channel Bridge, and the Pacet crushed rock, sand, piling, and the one identified by Bailey as the Channel Viaduct (see above). other construction materials. The most difficult and costly to cross, Each segment had a distinctive transport of large quantities of was to account for 41% of the feature. The three bridges consisted these materials required the use of Extension’s bridging. of steel girders mounted atop deep draft vessels, which required a FECR engineers designed massive concrete piers. The Moser deep-water port that did not exist in the crossing with a 4.8-mile Channel Bridge featured a swing the middle Florida Keys.