Eight to eleven miles southeast
of Florida City is a rare community. No one complains of unemployment
or
affordable housing. At one time over 100 people lived here and all had
waterfront homes. At its peak, about 30 were full time registered
voters. Few
millionaires can boast of a better view than the poorest resident here.
Back in
the 60s there were three acknowledged boat renters and restaurants: Bob
and
Lou’s, Alabama Jacks and Fred’s place. To my knowledge, none had
titles/deeds
to their properties. The photo to the right is a postcard of the
community on the Dade County side of the fill circa 1959.
World War
II was about to change things. The U.S. Navy at Key West required
better roads
and especially bridges. Most of the bridges at the two ends of the
overseas highway
still utilized the narrow wooden bridges built in the 1920s and would
not
support the heavy trucks to transport the needed heavy military
equipment. The
Navy financed two major highway improvements – they eliminated
both the
old 1928 SR 4A
routes in the Upper and the Lower Keys. This also made the route 14
miles
shorter.
For us
in
the Upper Keys the improvement was the construction of the “18 mile
stretch”
over the original Flagler railroad bed. Once opened there was no need
for the
old Card Sound route as Ocean Reef was not yet even purchased, must
less
developed. Monroe County did not want to maintain the now seldom uses
wooden
Card Sound swing bridge, so the bridge was removed. Dade County then
cut back
on the maintenance of their part of SR 4A. Dade County did receive some
rumblings about the need to support the road for fishing purposes;
however,
maintenance was the absolute minimum. To facilitate the fishing group,
the
state made leases for co-called fishing camps, much like the feds did
for
hunting camps
in the Everglades National Park.
What
remained were two causeways without a center connection; therefore,
there was
no through traffic, but ideal fishing areas. Leases or not, a small
community
grew along the right-of-way south east of the AT&T satellite
station. The
west side of the two lane highway is a canal dug for fill to construct
the
original 1920s highway. The map at the right is from a Miami Herald
newspaper of 1964.
One of
those living there decades ago was Doyle Green. At age 17, Doyle was
dying of
cancer at Jackson Memorial Hospital when he found God. Doyle is quoted
as
saying “The Lord turned the ceiling of the room into a TV screen” and
“He told
me he was going to give me new lungs.” Green would not live in Miami
and moved
to a shack he named Noah's Ark” at Card Sound where he began painting
religious
signs. One of the signs reads “Talking to God is better than Talking to
your
Yourself.”
A neighbor
of Green was Clarence Roberts and his wife, Loren. As many of the
others, they
make their livelihood from the surrounding waters, mostly selling blue
crabs.
On the
eastern side of the county
line, about a quarter of a mile of the causeway our to where the bridge
use to
be, belongs to Monroe County. Bob and Lou’s were most eastward of the
camps.
Bob and Lou Harris squatted, then leased on the causeway shortly after
WW II
circa 1948.
Florida
Power and Light ran power out the causeway and Bob and Lou was to last
customer
on the route – the most southern customer, but there was no public
drinking
water. They got along as all families did before the pipeline – water
cisterns
and when needed, or they hauled it in. Many of the residents travel
back and
forth to Homestead almost daily for various reasons; therefore,
bringing water
back is no real problem.
Another
early family were the Kirklands. There were G. D., the father, and his
son,
Dan, and wife Smitty. The father retired from Western Union and kicked around southern Florida before
stumbling on Card Sound. A place was for sale for $1,000 with no
property
title, but he snapped it up anyway. Eventually, the location became
Smitties
Place.
Then
there
is Alabama Jack’s. His real name is Jack Stratham and is from Sumpter
County,
Georgia, not Alabama. There were several workers named Jack on one of
his first
jobs and was dubbed “Alabama Jack.” He did not know why but relates it
could
have been his southern accent and they did not know the difference
between
Alabama and Georgia. In his real life he was first a riveter working on
the
Empire State building; then a multi-talented construction worker
working on
pipelines/refineries through out the world. Jack
is married to Alice, who is equally famous
for her crab cakes. The photo at the right is of Jack Stratham in
a 1971 Miami Herald photo.
Jack
and
Alice bought the Card
Sound lease in 1953 from a Miami plumber. Alabama Jack’s place is just
across
the county line in Monroe County and still has a lease. His initial
intention
was for a weekend place and a place to keep his boat. Soon there were
seven
boats and then an old railroad building as a home. After each
hurricane,
especially Donna in 1960 and Betsy in 1965, he remodeled with each one
a tad
bit larger.
The
new
elevated Card Sound Bridge
was opened in 1969 providing easier and shorter access for Ocean Reef
and the
Angler’s Club as well as a second entrance route in and out of the
Keys. Also,
a huge growth increase of North Key
Largo estimated by some to be 100,000 necessitated better access from
the
mainland. Some of the old bridge approaches had to be used for the new
bridge,
but Alabama Jack’s as well as most of the fish camps remained.
The need for increased
capacity via Card Sound is thought to have been the contributing factor
for Dade County code enforcement in 1975 to evict all residents who do
not have a current property lease. In June A Country-and-Western
musical group, The Shade Trees led by Shade Stevens, performed a fund
raising event at the Fred's Barn, owner Howard McQuaid, with over
100 attending raising over $1,000 to help fight the evictions.
Jack
died in 1977 shortly after he
and Alice moved to Homestead. He was buried near channel marker 27.
One of
the later Alabama Jack’s
owners was Don Sullivan who instituted a clogging band every weekend.
See photo at the right. In 1980,
Don sold to Rose Presti and if I am not out of date, I believe Phyllis
Sague is
the present owner.
Now
political pressure is on to
build the Card Sound/CR905 highway wider to better serve as an
additional
route
to/from the Keys and especially to augment hurricane evacuation for the
ever
increasing development in Keys southward. Monroe County is supposed to
be able
to totally evacuate all residents, guests and tourists in 24 hours, or
cease
building new places.
