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. The first to grow the sweet, juicy fruit commercially was a Key West wrecker named Ben Baker – wrecking was the business of salvaging ships, crews, passengers and cargo in peril. Baker was once hailed as the King of the Florida Wreckers.
Benjamin Baker was born on Green Turtle Cay, Abaco, in 1818. He married Catherine S. Albury, a Bahamian born in Eleuthera. Their marriage was fruitful, and delivered 11 children.
After the arrival of their third child, sometime between 1847 and 1848, the growing family left the Bahamas, sailed across the Straits of Florida and into the harbor at Key West.
They lived in a two-story house at the corner of Caroline and Whitehead streets. By 1850, Baker had established the Baker Wrecking Company and himself as a Florida wrecker. It was not his only job; he and his sons were pineapple farmers, too. It was the late 1850s when Baker sailed for the Upper Keys and cleared land on Plantation Key and Key Largo.
When the fields were ready, Baker left for Havana and purchased as many as 6,000 pineapple slips and suckers to plant on his lands. A firsthand account of his operation, written by Dr. J.B. Holder, appeared in an 1871 edition of Harper’s Weekly: “Plantation Key has considerable good soil; many of the trees here are seventy or eighty feet in height. Here was a large plantation of cocoa-nut palms, several hundred in number, and a patch of young pineapples. A late paper gives the account of the products of his patch, which have been materially increased since the writer was there. Mr. Baker, the owner, who resides at Key West, is reported to have realized seven thousand dollars this season from his crop of pine-apples. The great drawback is the prevalence of mosquitoes, throughout the whole year, in such swarms that few persons are willing to suffer
the annoyance; otherwise these keys would richly reward the cultivator.”
Today, the $7,000 Baker earned from his pineapple fields from that season’s haul would be worth about $150,000. In addition to Baker’s Plantation Key pineapple patch, his Key Largo homestead was located in the area of what is now MM 97.
At the Key Largo site, Baker built a home and operated his wrecking business, at least part-time, from the Key Largo anchorage. According to the 1870 U.S. Census, Baker was recorded as one of 61 people living on Key Largo. It was also the year that the island’s first post office opened. Baker filed the petition, indicating it would serve 17 families. It was not called the Key Largo Post Office but the Cayo Largo Post Office.
Early Spanish charts noted the island as Cayo de Dose Leguas or Key of Twelve Leagues. In William Roberts’ First Discovery and Natural History of Florida (1763), it was identified as “Cayo Largo O Doce Legues.” J.W. Norie, in his Piloting Directions for the Gulf of Florida, the Bahama Banks & Islands (1828), wrote: “Cayo Largo affords no living creature, except raccoons and insects, especially those troublesome ones, mosquitoes and scorpions.”
When driving over Key Largo and down the highway, where a wide median separates the southbound and northbound lanes, you will pass an old school, an old house and the area where, in 1977, sightings of Florida’s favorite cryptid made local headlines.
Near MM 98, the road passes through land once owned by William Dunham and Mary Jane Albury. Like many pioneers who carved out a way of life in the Florida Keys, they left the Bahamas and settled in Key West. In 1886, the Alburys, along with their three-week-old son William Beauregard, moved up the island chain to the Rock Harbor area of Key Largo. The family farmed pineapples until a blight and competition from Cuban farmers took its toll on the Keys’ pineapple industry.
The Alburys replaced their pineapple fields with groves of Key lime trees. In the early 1920s, they donated land from the groves to the Monroe County School District for a new school, the two-room, coral rock Rock Harbor Grammar School – built circa 1924. As you drive past the building, its coral “bones” can still be seen at what is now the Key Largo Moose Lodge (in the median near MM 98).
A little south of the old school is the home base of a local nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting coral reef awareness, the Reef Environmental Education Foundation. Circa 1912, William and Beauregard Albury built the conch-style wooden house. It was one of the first local homes to have screened-in windows. Today, it is the oldest structure on Key Largo standing in its original locale.
At MM 97, on the bayside of the highway, is Baker’s Cay. If the name sounds familiar, it should. The resort, built on land once owned by the man who introduced pineapple farming to the Florida Keys, was named to honor Captain Ben Baker.
Because you never know what you might see in the Florida Keys, back in the summer of 1977, people reported seeing a Skunk Ape in the area of Snapper’s Restaurant near MM 94. What is a Skunk Ape? It’s the Sunshine State’s favorite cryptid, Florida’s version of Bigfoot.
The event lasted two weeks. It wasn’t the only one, either. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I was contacted by someone who wasn’t sure what he saw until he walked past my book, “The Florida Keys Skunk Ape Files,” on display at Robbie’s of Islamorada and exclaimed to his wife, “That’s it, that’s what I saw!”
Remember to keep your eyes peeled when driving through the Florida Keys; there is a lot to see, and some of it is absolutely breathtaking. More importantly, pay attention to the road; the other people driving might be distracted, too.
