“In The Land of the Tarpon”: The Silver King, Sport, and the Development of Southwest Florida,...

“In The Land of theTarpon”1: The Silver King,

Sport, and theDevelopment of Southwest

Florida, 1885–19152

Kevin Kokomoor, Florida State University

Tarpon fishing offers the opportunity to pursue a narrative of environ-mental and sport history that focuses on the mutuality between ecologyand development. Angling for tarpon illustrates the capacity of an offshore,sporting species to alter the landscape and growth of an entire region.Tarpon fishing reshaped the southwest coast of Florida. In the CharlotteHarbor region, the confluence of human and nonhuman species catalyzeda sporting enterprise that grew dramatically in the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries. Fishing for tarpon in the Gulf of Mexico was almostexclusively a sporting pursuit, because the unpalatable tarpon had littlecommercial value. The convergence of the sporting and environmental his-tories of southwest Florida, the demographics of fishermen and fish, andthe development of sporting industries regionally and nationally all pro-vide evidence of the close ecological mutuality that defined tarpon anglingduring its peak years. On account of features of the fish’s annual and lifecycle, the region, and the sport, this fishing seemed not to overtax popu-lations of the fish themselves.

“I left Tampa en route to St. James City on the S. S. Tarpon,” anenthusiastic sportsman wrote the popular outdoor magazine Forestand Stream, describing one of his angling adventures to southwestFlorida’s Charlotte Harbor. “The name of the steamer is significant,but one is not at all surprised at it. Tarpon is the order of the day.Everybody talks tarpon, villages spring up near its favorite haunts,

1New York Times, Mar. 5, 1893, 20 (hereafter NYT).2The author thanks Dr. Gary Mormino and Dr. Andrew K. Frank for encouragingthis project.

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 11:2 Apr. 2012 doi:10.1017/S1537781412000023 191

and the people flock to them as to some ‘placer’ at the west.” Thesmall frontier settlement of Fort Myers, for instance, owed its “pre-sent prosperity, mainly, to the ‘Silver King.’ Every branch of itstrade is, more or less, influenced by the fishing industry. The hotels,with few exceptions, are more or less crowded with opulent plea-sure seekers, whose sole object is to secure a trophy of this beautifulfish—nothing less will satisfy them.”3

Along the coast of southwest Florida, narratives like this angler’sillustrate a sporting scene that had developed dramatically by theclose of the nineteenth century. The scene, in turn, illuminatesAmerican sporting and environmental history in several ways.The tarpon’s role in the development of coastal Florida offers anexample of nonhuman factors behind what historian DonaldWorster calls the “technological environment.” The resort townsof west Florida are, as Worster elaborates, examples of those “clus-ter[s] of things that people have made, which can be so pervasive asto constitute a kind of ‘second nature’ around them,” but which are,in essence, “a product of human culture as conditioned by the non-human environment.”4 During the early twentieth century, Florida’sCharlotte Harbor region, the focus of this essay, took shape in a waythat reflected the mutual relationship between tarpon, the area’snatural habitat, the era’s sport and leisure culture, and the trajectoryof Florida’s outdoor industry.

Through the stories such as that of Florida tarpon fishing, historianscan explain how sporting pursuits have had the capacity to alter thelandscape and growth of entire regions. An examination of tarponand its connection to southwestern Florida, for instance, beginswith a distinctive offshore fish once widely disdained, which wasthen discovered and rapidly pursued by a large group of wealthysporting enthusiasts, all the while being ignored by commercialanglers. With the exception of studies of hunting, few scholars ofsport or environmental history weave the two together in a waythat also encompasses their combined effects on a region.5 State

3Forest and Stream, Apr. 28, 1892, 394 (hereafter FAS).4Donald Worster, “Transformations of the Earth: Toward an AgroecologicalPerspective in History,” Journal of American History 76 (Mar. 1990): 1089.5Sport histories have generally downplayed participatory outdoor adventures infavor of organized and urban sports such as baseball or football. For studies thatspecifically downplay outdoor sport: Donald J. Mrozek, Sport and AmericanMentality, 1880–1910 (Knoxville, TN, 1983), 170–71; Frederic L. Paxson, “The Riseof Sport” in Sport and American Society: Selected Readings, 2nd ed., ed. George H.Sage (Reading, MA, 1974), 83. See also: Benjamin G. Rader, American Sports: From

192 | Kokomoor | “In The Land of the Tarpon”

Figure 1. “Map of the Plant System of Railway, Steamer, and Steamship Linesand Connections,” early 1900s. Fort Myers is at the southwest of the rail line.Courtesy of Florida Photographic Collections, RC14378.

the Age of Folk Games to the Age of Televised Sports, 3rd. ed (Englewood Cliffs, NJ,1996); Steven A. Riess, City Games: The Evolution of American Urban Society and theRise of Sports (Urbana, 1991); Daniel K. Wiggins, ed., Sport in America: FromWicked Amusement to National Obsession (Champaign, IL, 1995); Elliot J. Gorn andWarren Goldstein, A Brief History of American Sports (Urbana, 2004).

The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era | 11:2 Apr. 2012 193

and local histories in Florida also pay inadequate attention to thecentrality of tarpon fishing in the regional growth of the southwestcoast.6 The environmental histories of Florida and the Gulf, mean-while, tend to focus on market forces or the responses that cameafter human interactions had posed a conservationist dilemma oran environmental crisis.7 The few studies that do consider eithersport hunting or fishing have focused more on the outdoorsmenthemselves as political actors than on the actual sport—on thesemen’s campaigns against market hunters, their role in the conserva-tion of various regions and species, or on the waste and devastationthat conservationism was intended to counter.8

Tarpon offer the opportunity to pursue a different narrative, focusedon the mutuality between ecology and development. Tarpon is justone example of a species whose sport use dramatically influencedonshore communities and vice versa. Tarpon, sporting men, andsouthwest Florida were interconnected in a number of specificways. The Charlotte Harbor region’s dynamic marine habitat issingular in its ability to shelter the fish for a period and in numbersnot possible elsewhere on Florida’s Gulf of Mexico or Atlanticcoasts.9 The seasonal confluence of humans and a nonhuman

6State and local histories include: Charlton W. Tebeau, A History of Florida (CoralGables, FL, 1971); Michael Gannon, ed., The New History of Florida (Gainesville,FL, 1996); Edgar Canter Brown Jr., Florida’s Peace River Frontier (Orlando, FL,1991); Karl H. Grismer, The Story of Fort Myers; The History of the Land of theCaloosahatchee and Southwest Florida (St. Petersburg, FL, 1949); and Janet SnyderMatthews, Journey From Horse and Chaise: A History of Venice, Florida (Sarasota, FL,1989).7A recent example of such an interpretation: Callum Roberts, The Unnatural Historyof the Sea (Washington, 2007). In Florida, relevant studies include: Jack E. Davis andRaymond Arsenault, Paradise Lost?: The Environmental History of Florida (Gainesville,FL, 2005); and Jack Temple Kirby,Mockingbird Song: Ecological Landscapes of the South(Chapel Hil, 2006).8On hunting and the conservation mindset, Roderick Nash, Wilderness and theAmerican Mind, 3rd ed. (New Haven, 1982); John F. Reiger, American Sportsmenand the Origins of Conservation (New York, 1975); James B. Trefethen, An AmericanCrusade for Wildlife (New York, 1975). On the cultural history of hunting: JohnPettegrew, Brutes in Suits: Male Sensibility in America, 1890–1920 (Baltimore, 2007);Daniel J. Herman, Hunting and the American Imagination (Washington, 2001); MattCartmill, A View to a Death in the Morning: Hunting and Nature Through History(Cambridge, MA, 1993); Thomas L. Altherr, “The American Hunter-Naturalistand the Development of the Code of Sportsmanship,” Journal of Sport History 5(Spring 1978): 7–22.9As angler S. A. Binion surmised, although they could be found elsewhere, “from allaccounts, Charlotte Harbor and its numerous creeks and inlets . . . seem to be theheadquarters of this prince of fishes.” FAS, Apr. 28, 1892, 394.


specie—tarpon to the beaches and passes and northern fishermen tothe same region’s coastal resort towns—holds the key to the nationalsuccess of tarpon as an angling adventure and to the developmentof coastal southwest Florida. Well-heeled outdoorsmen comprisedthe majority of anglers. They traveled from the North, Midwest,and even from across the Atlantic to court the silver king, andthey mark the sport’s popularity as much more than a regionalphenomenon. The high price of the adventure, in addition to thelack of a commercial fishing industry in the region and the unmar-ketable quality of the fish, all combined to keep the fishery inCharlotte Harbor in a healthy condition even after its sportingpotential had been realized.10 Overall, once tarpon adventure con-nected southwest Florida to the nation’s sporting industry after1885, the impact of the fishing culture on the region’s growth provedextraordinary. Developments like the construction of resort hotelsand the increased usage of local guides serve as the best barometerfor the impact of fishing on the region.

Florida’s coastal marine environments feature a unique “diversity ofhabitats”—sea grass beds, tidal regions and marshes, areas of soft orhard sediments, oyster and other shellfish beds, and other “tran-sition zones.”11 Many of these transition areas are also fertile marineestuaries. Estuaries include regions of high freshwater content,where land runoff and rivers empty into the salinity of the region’sbackwaters. In the case of Charlotte Harbor, this created a “welldefined salinity structure” and a gradation from freshwater toocean salinity. Estuaries are also areas of development critical tonumerous inshore wildlife populations; they contain the environsnecessary to develop and sustain countless species of shellfish andfinfish.12

Charlotte Harbor provides an excellent example of this environ-ment. Not including the rivers and basins, which contribute to its

10The first tarpon was reportedly captured on rod and reel off Punta Rassa in 1885by William H. Wood of New York City. For national recognition of this catch, FAS,Apr. 16, 1885, 228–29; FAS, Apr. 23, 1885, 251; FAS, May 6, 1886, 287; “Fishing,”Outing, an Illustrated Monthly Magazine of Recreation, July 1885, 504. “TarponFishing With Rod and Reel,” Scientific American, May 23, 1885, 327.; Robert Grant,“Tarpon Fishing in Florida,” Scribner’s, Aug. 1889, 156; Washington Post, May 9,1886, 7 (hereafter WP).11Robert J. Livingston, “Inshore Marine Habitats” in Ecosystems of Florida, eds.Ronald L Myers and John J. Ewel (Orlando, FL, 2003), 549. See also, Bureau ofLand and Water Management, Charlotte Harbor: A Florida Resource (Washington,n.d.), 5–6.12Charlotte Harbor: A Florida Resource, 5–7, 9, 11.


biological profile, the bay encompasses roughly 122,000 acres, mak-ing it the second largest in the state.13 It is protected naturally fromthe Gulf of Mexico to the west by a string of barrier islands, whichare separated by swift-moving coastal passes. This sequence beginswith Little Gasparilla and Gasparilla Islands to the north, separatedby Stump Pass; Gasparilla and Cayo Costa Islands, separated byBoca Grande Pass; Boca Grande and Captiva Islands, separated byCaptiva Pass; and finally, Captiva and Sanibel Islands to thesouth, separated by Redfish Pass. Inside these barrier islands, thePeace and Myakka Rivers combine from the north and northeastto form the harbor proper. The Caloosahatchee River flows westfrom Lake Okeechobee and drains into the southeast of the bay.Inside the barrier keys lies Pine Island, approximately two mileswide and seventeen miles in length, which stretches from north tosouth down the east side of the harbor. At the extreme south,below the mouth of the Caloosahatchee and the southern edge ofPine Island, lies San Carlos Bay, which opens to the Gulf of Mexico.

The harbor’s combination of brackish backwaters, grass and mudflats, and access to ocean water through island passes, provides allof the habitats necessary for tarpon to thrive during all phases oftheir life cycle. In fact, with its subtropical climate, expansive range,and multiple marine environments, the bay is a complex coastal eco-system that supports the fish very successfully. This explains whyareas like Punta Rassa, Pine Island, Fort Myers, Useppa, and BocaGrande all became “familiar to sportsmen all over the country.”14

Anglers first began fishing close to the only lodge available, whichwas at Punta Rassa, just south of the mouth of the CaloosahatcheeRiver and at the north edge of San Carlos Bay. For this reason, thesport’s techniques originally developed around the harbor’s flats,rivers, and backwaters. Only here, the pioneer anglers thought,did tarpon supposedly haunt “the shallow bays and creeks andbayous inside the bars and keys.”15 There is little evidence that

13Ibid., 9.14For more on the Charlotte Harbor estuary, John L. Taylor, “The Charlotte HarborEstuarine System,” Florida Scientist 37:4 (1974): 205–16; NYT, Feb. 14, 1892, 20; FrankParker Stockbridge and John Holliday Perry, So This is Florida (Jacksonville, FL,1937), 149. Also: NYT, Mar. 5, 1893, 20; Barbour, Florida for Tourists, Invalids, andSettlers (1882; Gainesville, FL, 1964), 148–49; Grant, “Tarpon Fishing In Florida,”157–58.15Alvan S. Southworth, “The Silver King,” Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, Dec. 1888,662. Also: NYT, May 7, 1886, 8; NYT, Dec. 30, 1888, 10; Thomas C. Felton, “TarponFishing in the Gulf of Mexico,” Outing, Jan. 1888, 331–35.


anglers even attempted to fish anywhere else before the 1890s. “Fewfishermen have made investigations on their own account,” accord-ing to one, “being content to try their fortune where others havebeen successful.”16 St. James City, located only miles from PuntaRassa, also catered to the bay at the southern reaches of the harbor,explaining its development in the early history of the sport as well.Later, the fishing prospects shifted to the Caloosahatchee, whichaccounts for the development of Fort Myers as the location of choice.As one angler explained in 1891, more were seen and caught in sightof that “beautiful village” than at any other point.17

This range explains the early development of a fishing techniquecentered on the region’s flats and backwaters. It also explains theimmediate success of the sport’s first three harbor towns—PuntaRassa, St. James City, and Fort Myers—because they were all posi-tioned at the south of the harbor and in areas of shallow, murky,low-salinity water. These estuary regions hold the richest assort-ment of shell and finfish, and the tarpon’s adaptation allows it toexploit reaches of the harbor high in nutrients, yet inaccessible toother species. As juveniles, they are present year-round in theseenvironments; and as they mature and become migratory, theyreturn to the harbor’s backwaters during the winter season.Estuaries also function to sustain the fish in extreme weatherconditions. Although tarpon are capable of thriving in a variety oflow-salinity and low-oxygen habitats, they cannot withstand cold

Figure 2. “Seldom an Interval of Ten Minutes Between the Landing of OneTarpon and the Strike of His Successor,” from A. W. Dimock, The Book of theTarpon (New York, 1911), 128. Courtesy of Google Books.

16Grant, “Tarpon Fishing In Florida,” 156–57.17FAS, Nov. 12, 1891, 327.


weather or abrupt changes in water temperature.18 During thecoldest months they retreat into coastal channels, bays, and otherbackwater regions, all of which maintain warm water temperaturesthe longest during cold snaps and throughout the winter season.Charlotte Harbor’s rivers and bays hold the flats, channels, andbackwaters necessary to guard tarpon during these winter months.Punta Rassa, St. James City, and Fort Myers are all settlementslocated in these regions. The winter seasons popular in these placeswith northern tourists corresponded well with the months when tar-pon would have accumulated around them to escape low watertemperatures. These seasonal conditions explain why the harbortowns, hitherto little known for their winter sport offerings, wereable to develop tourist trades around tarpon practically as soon asanglers recognized their sporting potential.

Because water temperatures were low, and fish moved little to con-serve energy, tarpon were not particularly active. They hugged thebottom of flats and bays, underneath mangroves and in deep holesor channels. As a result, the preferred method of catching thembecame anchoring the boat, throwing out a strip of mullet, and leav-ing it to sink. Only after the fish had time to wander upon the baitand then fully swallow it would the angler make his strike. This firstpredominant style of tarpon angling became known as still-fishing,or as enthusiasts referred to it, “gorge” fishing.19

The gorge fishing method was the first detailed tarpon technique tobe perfected, and it held sway with anglers from the sport’s first sea-son until the mid-1890s. The constant experimentation associatedwith any new endeavor, however, yielded a new method andfresh locations in southwest Florida’s tarpon fishing scene as earlyas 1895. That year, angling pioneer Edward Vom Hofe drift-fishedCaptiva pass, thereby developing a new style suitable for a radicallydifferent environment.20 By the early years of the twentieth century,the technique of drift- or pass-fishing had been perfected, and the

18One of the fish’s unusual characteristics is an air bladder that allows them to cap-ture atmospheric oxygen. This adaptation allows them to thrive in the farthestreaches of brackish waters, even in some freshwater environments, and in murkyor stagnant areas. Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission, “Tarpon: Silver King ofthe Coast,” Sea Stats, June 2005, 2–3, available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/34595046/Sea-Stats-Tarpon?in_collection=2498616 (accessed Jan. 6, 2012).19Rowland Ward, The English Angler in Florida, With Some Descriptive Notes of theGame Animals and Birds (London, 1898), 26–29.20FAS, Mar. 18, 1895, 394; FAS, June 22, 1895, 511; FAS, May 14, 1898, 391.


sportsmen using this method shifted angling pressure away fromthe bays and flats and toward the harbor’s coastal passes.21

Captiva and Boca Grande passes were the prime coastal inlets inwhich these techniques were developed. All the techniques for tar-pon fishing sought to account for the seasonal migrations andother behavior patterns of the fish. Tarpon spawn offshore in thesummer months and begin to congregate both off the beaches andin deep coastal passes in the spring as a means to court and preparefor that journey. In addition, amid outgoing tides, massive amountsof water move through the inlets and into the gulf; during thesetimes the passes offer a virtual buffet of crabs, shrimp, and smallfish for the tarpon waiting in their deep cuts.22 When anglers driftedthrough these passes in April, May, and June, they naturallyencountered staggering numbers of fish collected in a geographi-cally small location and feeding aggressively. The first major coastalinlet to be tested by anglers in this way was Captiva Pass in 1895.

The inlet itself is not very large—approximately a quarter-mile wideand about a half-mile long. Its bottom is rocky at points and mod-erately deep at twenty-eight feet, and the current moving either inor out can become intense.23 When anglers drifted the pass duringthe spring and summer months, they realized that huge numbersof tarpon inhabited its currents and cuts. The fish saturated theplace in “innumerable thousands,” according to one enthusiast,and it was “a fine sight to see the water literally alive” with them.Indeed, in a place with “turbulent waters alive with fish,”where tar-pon bit so “voraciously and incessantly,” anglers gladly braved thedangerous waters.24 There the fish were reported “in great num-bers,” the Fort Myers News Press acknowledged in 1902, addingthat “a few years ago,” it was “the greatest fishing grounds on thecoast.”25

Boca Grande Pass held even more impressive prospects. This large,deep pass separated the north end of Cayo Costa Island from thesouth end of Gasparilla Island and was the next inlet to the north

21Anglers wrote extensively on these changing methods. See: FAS, June 22, 1895,511; WP, Mar. 1, 1905, E12; Ward, The English Angler in Florida, 57–58.22Sea Stats, June 2005, 2.23Frances E. B. Slaughter, The Sportswoman’s Library (Westminster, UK, 1898), 1:170,174, 177; A. W. Dimock, “King Tarpon, The High Leaper of the Sea,” Outing, Mar.1909, 707–11.24FMNP, May 15, 1897; Slaughter, The Sportswoman’s Library, 1:178–79.25FMNP, May 15, 1902.


of Captiva. Its cut was almost a mile wide and held several squaremiles of water from thirty to over fifty feet deep; its deepest holereached eighty feet and deeper. Even more than Captiva Pass,Boca Grande’s waters were remarkably unpredictable. “There, inthe tideway in ten to forty feet,” an angler described one morning,“the sea was rolling in from the gulf, and with tide and crosswind made a turmoil that stirred up the sand and made the waterroily.” At times of bad weather, the rollers outside of the pass andits swift currents made the inlet downright dangerous.26 Still, aswith Captiva, anglers were willing to test the conditions becausethe large numbers of tarpon captivated them. “For several wintersI had felt convinced that in the large, deep water pass there mustbe good fishing,” one angler confessed in 1898. Just outside thepass, after they had arrived, “we found ourselves literally sur-rounded by hundreds of tarpon. In fact, for half a mile in everydirection one could see them curving out of the water.” One morn-ing, “from 5 A. M. until 9 A. M. they bit like catfish.” “I feel con-vinced personally,” the enthusiastic angler concluded, “that BocaGrande will turn out to be one of the best, if not the best, tarpon fish-ing grounds in Florida or anywhere else along the Gulf Coast.”27Photographer A. W. Dimock had a similar experience there. Thisfishing, he concluded, “I look upon as mighty near the center ofthe tarpon industry of the country.”28

The seasonal nature of tarpon migration connected silver kings withthe leisure culture of Gilded Age and Progressive Era sporting menin a fascinating way, highlighting the mutuality of tarpon angling’secology. If tarpon were not moving through coastal passes and intothe region’s backwaters during the height of the North’s leisureseason—the months of February, March, and April—the fishing’spopularity would never have developed as it did.

The domination of the sport by wealthy outdoorsmen seekingleisure and sport was a crucial component of the region’s success.In the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, affluent late nineteenth- andearly twentieth-century sportsmen reveled in the outdoors, andthey soon looked to southwest Florida to fulfill their desires. Theylonged for struggles with large and potentially dangerous gamebecause of the fight’s masculine, regenerative qualities, and theysought elaborate hunting or fishing adventures as a way to identify

26FAS, July 2, 1898, 5; FAS, Apr. 3, 1909, 540.27FAS, July 2, 1898.28Dimock, “King Tarpon, The High Leaper of the Sea,” 710.


with those emotions. They looked to wilderness as a way to recon-nect with their more manly, self-sufficient ancestors.29 As a result,scores of well-to-do sporting men took pilgrimages into theAmerican wilderness throughout the era to hunt bear, moose, anddeer, shoot countless birds, and fish never-ending waters. Theydid so mostly during the summer and spring months; soon afterthe discovery of tarpon, however, they were traveling south duringtheir winter vacations in search of battles with the silver king.Because of their means and their search for outdoor stimulation,these men constituted the majority of the sport’s participants, andtheir search for adventure developed coastal regions in significantways.30

On the coast of Florida the scene was inviting. In the years immedi-ately after the Civil War, residents began attempts to develop a tour-ist economy. A few resorts existed on both the eastern and westerncoasts of the state in the 1870s and 1880s—most notably in thesouthwestern region.31 “The geographical, commercial, and climaticadvantages of the place are too apparent to escape notice,” one visi-tor described in 1879. Charlotte Harbor, by then, was already under-stood by northerners to be “one of the most popular winter resortsin the State.”32 Still, Florida’s infrastructure was woefully underde-veloped. Jacksonville, Key West, Pensacola, and Tampa, all cities ofwell under 20,000 as late 1890, were also the only coastal cities orcommunities with any sort of regular access by train or steamer.33Perhaps because of Tampa’s connection to Key West and Cuba, as

29Reiger, American Sportsmen, 21–22. On the concept of sportsmanship as it appliedto tarpon angling, Kevin Kokomoor, “The ‘Most Strenuous of Anglers’ Sports isTarpon Fishing’: The Silver King and Progressive-Era Sporting Men,” Journal ofSport History 37 (Fall 2010): 347–64.30According to the 1898 catch list of the Fort Myers News Press (hereafter FMNP), ofthe 163 fish caught during that season, 64 were caught by anglers from New York,47 from Kentucky, 15 from New Jersey, 12 from Pennsylvania, 9 from Virginia, 4from Great Britain, 3 from Ohio, 2 from Washington D.C., and 2 from RhodeIsland. Two were Fort Myers locals, and 2 were caught by anglers who did notgive their city or state of origin. FMNP, Apr. 28, 1898.31For the post-Civil War development of Florida as a winter resort, Gannon, ed., TheNew History of Florida, 257–60, 277.32Barbour, Florida for Tourists, Invalids, and Settlers, 147–48.33The population of Florida’s major cities in 1890: Key West, 18,080; Jacksonville,17,201l; Pensacola, 11,750; and Tampa, 5,532. For 1920: Jacksonville, 91,558;Tampa, 51,608; Pensacola, 31,035; Miami, 29,571; Key West, 18,749; andSt. Petersburg, 14,237. Thirteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1910(Washington, 1913), 2:299; Fourteenth Census of the United States Taken in 1920(Washington, 1923), 3:195.


well as its usage by American armed forces in the Spanish AmericanWar, the southwestern coast developed earlier than the southeast-ern. That only began changing in the early twentieth century withthe emergence of Miami.34

After the discovery of tarpon sport in the late nineteenth century,tourist-related businesses in the North’s as well as those in southwestFlorida’s fledgling tourism industry began capitalizing on the region’sopportunities. Sporting shops in northern cities embraced tarponquickly, and within years of the first catch, most large sportinggoods purveyors advertised tarpon equipment aggressively.35 Trainand steamer lines increasingly offered routes into the region and pro-moted fishing lodges to tarpon anglers.36 Transportation expansionwas particularly important to Florida; where rail lines werebuilt, development soon followed. Moreover, whereas train serviceto Tampa had been established for a decade, service into PuntaGorda—a much closer port to the harbor—had just been made avail-able in 1885. Steamer services were beginning to expand into frontiercommunities like Fort Myers as well, providing the critical connectionnorthern sportsmen needed to make their adventure possible.37

34Gannon, ed., The New History of Florida, 276. For more on Tampa’s role in south-west Florida, Tebeau, A History of Florida, 285–86, 309–26; Gary R. Mormino andGeorge E. Pozzetta, The Immigrant World of Ybor City: Italians and Their LatinNeighbors in Tampa, 1885–1985 (1978; Gainesville, FL, 1998); and Nancy A. Hewitt,Southern Discomfort: Women’s Activism in Tampa, Florida, 1880s–1920s (Urbana, 2001).35“There are indications that the tarpon cult is growing in this part of the country,” awriter penned from Chicago. “Quite a number of our anglers outfit for Florida everywinter.” FAS, Jan. 20, 1900, 47. The development of the sport was widely covered innational sporting periodicals, as well as major newspapers. The northern sportingscene, particularly in New York, embraced tarpon; shortly after the first recordedcapture in 1885, new rods, reels, and tackle were available from the city’s most repu-table sporting dealers. For examples of these developments, Southworth, “The SilverKing,” 662–66; Ward, The English Angler in Florida, 6; A. W. and Julian A. Dimock,Florida Enchantments, with Numerous Illustrations from Photographs (New York, 1908),162–63; and Grant, “Tarpon Fishing in Florida, 154–68. Examples of press coverageinclude: NYT, Dec. 30, 1888, 10; NYT, Feb. 8, 1890, 3; NYT, July 1, 1895; WP, Feb. 23,1902, 14; WP, Dec. 4, 1898, 28; FMNP, Mar. 14, 1889. Southworth, “The Silver King,”662–63, 665–66. For advertisements for tarpon supplies in northern sporting shops,FAS, Dec. 10, 1891, 423; FAS, Jan. 2 1890, 483; FAS, Feb. 20, 1890, 100; FAS, Jan. 7,1892, 22; FAS, Jan, 12, 1893, 6; FAS, Jan. 5, 1895, 5; FAS, Jan. 4, 1896, 6; Outing,Mar. 1898 and Mar. 1899, 53.36For a selection of railroad advertisements featuring tarpon and the southwest coastof Florida: Christian Union, Dec. 12. 1891, 1192; Outing, Oct. 1891, xix; FAS, June 25,1904, 10; NYT, Dec. 22, 1914, 18.37On railroads and southwest Florida: Tebeau, A History of Florida, 283–84; Gannon,ed., The New History of Florida, 259–60, 268–71; Gregg M. Turner, Images of America:


Because of these connections to the country’s larger sporting andleisure industry, early tarpon fishing action peaked in communitieslike St. James City or Fort Myers precisely when the North’s winterseason was in full swing; it seldom continued past May, eventhough the best fishing was available later in the summer.“Undoubtedly the spring is the superior season,” one anglerexplained, “though by far the majority of Tarpon anglers choosetheir outing when they may escape the rigors of a northern win-ter.”38 Most sportsmen preferred to rely on the region’s fledglingbut pre-existing infrastructure to pursue their fishing adventures.They accelerated development of southwest Florida’s tourism indus-try to a significant degree by doing so, highlighting the sport’sassociation with Gilded Age leisure culture.39

The prices sporting men paid also reveals the exclusive nature of theadventure. Most contemporaries agreed that the sport’s costs—many times exceeding hundreds of dollars for each fish killed—made it difficult for lower- and even middle-class anglers toparticipate. Tarpon fishing was enjoyed “mainly by Northern gen-tlemen of wealth and leisure,” remarked one, “particularly thosewho spend part of the summer amid the salmon haunts of Maineand Canada.”40 Another explained that it was meant only for thewell-to-do, “as the expense that it incurs is comparatively great,”and it involved “nearly always a long journey to and fro.” A

Railroads of Southwest Florida (Charleston, SC, 1999), 10; U.S. Cleveland and LindseyWilliams, Our Fascinating Past, Charlotte Harbor: The Early Years (Punta Gorda, FL,1993), 105–06, 107, 115, 122–23; Dudley Sady Johnson, “The Railroads of Florida,1865–1900” (PhD diss., Florida State University, 1965), 156, 159, 166, 170. For theroles of Henry Plant and Henry Flagler, Gregg M. Turner and Seth H. Bramson,The Plant System of Railroads, Steamships and Hotels: The South’s First GreatIndustrial Enterprise (Laurys Station, PA, 2004); Susan R. Braden, The Architectureof Leisure: The Florida Resort Hotels of Henry Flagler and Henry Plant (Gainesville,FL, 2002); and Edward A. Mueller, Steamships of the Two Henrys: Being an Accountof the Maritime Activities of Henry Morrison Flagler and Henry Bradley Plant(Jacksonville, FL, 1996). For steamer transit: FAS, Mar. 12, 1891, 152; FAS, July 1,1899, 10–11.38W. A. Perry, American Game Fishes: Their Habits, Habitat, and Peculiarities; How,When, and Where to Angle for Them (Chicago, 1892), 17. For more on the winter sche-dules of anglers, see: “The Tarpon Season at Charlotte Harbor,” Feb. 1891, 108; WP,Dec. 4, 1898, 28; John Mortimer Murphy, “Tarpon Fishing, Florida,” Outing, Feb. 1,1891, 398.39Articles that explain the tarpon season include: “The Tarpon Season at CharlotteHarbor,” Outing, Feb. 1891, 108; Perry, American Game Fishes, 17; WP, Dec. 4,1898, 28; Murphy, “Tarpon Fishing, Florida,” 398; FAS, Apr. 28, 394.40“The Tarpon Season at Charlotte Harbor,” Outing, 108; Perry, American GameFishes, 17; WP, Dec. 4, 1898, 28; Murphy, “Tarpon Fishing, Florida,” 398.


New York Times writer similarly cautioned that the equipment, time,and travel necessary made the fishing “quite expensive” and “pre-vents many sportsmen from enjoying this fun.”41 The sport’s exces-sive bills assured that the majority of the anglers partaking in tarponfishing were men of affluence, with plenty of free time. Manynotable sportsmen from the period did indeed enjoy the action.42Senator Matthew Quay of Pennsylvania, for instance, was a staple

Figure 3. Cover of Frank S. Pinckney, The Tarpon or “Silver King”: Its History andthe Method of Capture (New York, 1888). Courtesy of Google Books.

41FAS, Aug. 25, 1900, 151; NYT, July 21, 1895, 19; Dimock and Dimock, FloridaEnchantments, 31. On the prices of these services, NYT, Dec. 18, 1894, 6;Southworth, “The Silver King,” 663.42Edward Prime, for instance, was a fixture on the sporting scene in the 1880s and1890s when he was “not off in the mountains or in the bays.” In 1889 the New YorkTimes posted his record for the year, which included over thirty fish captured. NYT,June 8, 1889, 8.


personality on the tarpon scene.43 Florida’s railroad magnatesHenry Plant and Henry Flagler frequently angled for the silverking as well.44

The economic exclusivity of tarpon angling also helps to explainwhy anglers did not overtax the fish population over years ofpressure. The fish’s mediocre table quality also contributed to itssustainability. Although a number of Florida species were pursuedfor the commercial market, tarpon certainly were not. Numerousanglers remarked that the fish was not good fare at all, and fewanglers even attempted to cook one. “The flesh is something thecolor of unhealthy beef,” according to one who tried it, being“flabby and having a strong smell.”45 More palatable species, par-ticularly redfish, trout, pompano, mackerel, and grouper, were pre-ferred by the anglers who decided to keep a fish for dinner.46Because of tarpon’s poor table quality, a national market neveremerged, and commercial anglers never targeted it.47 “The seines,trawls, and other wasteful and destructive appliances by whichthe ingenious market fishermen of the United States have almostannihilated the fisheries of our coast,” one angler explained, wereall “fortunately useless against the tarpon,” and so he consideredthe fishing safe from the “‘improvements’ of civilization.”48

That is not to say that anglers treated their captured tarpon in a moreconservative way than they did any other game species. Instead, thecomparativeworthlessness of the fish negatively corresponded to thecompassion tarponwere shown in battle, particularly after theweightand measurement of each fish became as important as actually land-ing it. In the sport’s earliest years, thousands of fish were caught,killed, weighed, and measured, and then left to drift back out into

43For a sample of articles on Quay’s involvement: FAS, June 9, 1887, 436; FAS, Apr.19, 1888, 250; WP, Feb. 26, 1899, 17; NYT, Apr. 27, 1890, 16; Outing, Oct. 1891, xix;NYT, Aug. 27, 1896, 10; FAS, Aug. 29, 1896, 172; FAS, Sept. 19, 1896, 232.44WP, Feb. 26, 1899, 17.45FAS, June 23, 1887, 478. For comments on the table quality of tarpon: Grant,“Tarpon Fishing in Florida,” 155; O.P. Hay, “Tarpon-Fishing in Florida,” Outing,Jan. 1898, 378; NYT, June 18, 1905, SM4; WP, May 9, 1909, M1; FAS, Aug. 25,1900, 151.46FAS, April 7, 1887, 232.47On Charlotte Harbor commercial fisheries: James W. Covington, “Trade RelationsBetween Southwestern Florida and Cuba: 1600–1840,” Florida Historical Quarterly 38(Oct. 1959): 114–28; E. A. Hammond, “The Spanish Fisheries of Charlotte Harbor,”Florida Historical Quarterly 51 (Apr. 1973): 355–80; and Robert F. Edic, Fisherfolk ofCharlotte Harbor, Florida (Gainesville, FL, 1996).48Felton, “Tarpon Fishing in the Gulf of Mexico,” 331.


the bay. Anglers seldom saved a trophy and almost never let theircatch live. Because they viewed the stock of tarpon as limitless andotherwise useless, sportsmen held few moral reservations about kill-ing every single specimen they caught—regardless of its size. Manytimes anglers caught dozens in a single trip, sometimes in a singleday, and in each instance they gaffed and killed their fish for noother reason than that they were easier to weigh when they weredead. In the sport’s earliest years, relatively few sporting mendetested this practice, and the industry killed hundreds, if not thou-sands, of tarpon each fishing season.49

This disregard for the life of fish—many of which may well havebeen older than the fishermen themselves—was tragic from amoral standpoint, but it also could have had a catastrophic impacton the regional ecosystem. Tarpon grow quickly during the firsttwo years of their life but do not reach sexual maturity until ageten. They have been known to live as long as fifty-five years. Anaverage-sized specimen weighed approximately 100 pounds andwas usually thirteen to sixteen years of age.50 Many catches fellwithin this range, and so capturing and removing too many sexuallymature specimens could have easily disrupted the fish’s reproduc-tive cycle. In turn, the fish’s decreased numbers could have had asignificant impact on the balance of the harbor’s estuary regions—where both juvenile and full-grown tarpon congregated—causingincreased numbers of crustaceans or finfish.

What is surprising, then, is that even under intense fishing pressure,the tarpon population appears to have remained steady and healthythroughout the sport’s first generation—a time when the fishingpressure was intensifying rapidly and when even mediocre catcheshad little hope of being released alive. One angler observed almost adecade after the first tarpon had been caught, “They are more abun-dant now than ever before. I do not believe it is possible to materi-ally diminish the supply, and I find all those of experience withwhom I have talked agree with me.”51

49For anglers commenting on the wastefulness of the sport: F. G. Aflalo, Sunshine andSport in Florida and the West Indies (Philadelphia, 1907), 107–08; Hugh V. Warrender,“Pass Fishing for Tarpon,” The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Mar. 1898, 417;Ward, The English Angler in Florida, 36, 113–14; Dimock and Dimock, FloridaEnchantments, 168, 173; Dimock, “King Tarpon, The High Leaper of the Sea,” 717;NYT, Mar. 19, 1893, 20; NYT, June 18, 1905, SM4.50Florida Department of Environmental Protection, “Tarpon: Silver King of theCoast,” (St. Petersburg, 1997), repr. in Sea Stats, June 2005, 3–4.51FAS, June 30, 1894, 556.


Catch lists evince this trend. In 1889, a book on Florida included theentire list of the tarpon caught during the season at Punta Rassa.Seventy-seven fish were captured from February to May, andanglers kept statistics on each fish’s weight and length. The averageweight of the tarpon that season was 108.5 pounds, with the smal-lest recorded catch being 53 pounds and the largest being 153pounds. The average length was 69.8 inches, with the shortest fishbeing 56 inches and the largest being 78 inches.52 Nearly a decadelater, in 1898, the Fort Myers News Press published a comprehensivelist up to the end of the season in late April. Catches had increasedover the nine years from 77 to 163. The average weight of the fish in1898 was 91.3 pounds, with the smallest recorded catch being 16pounds and the largest being 185 pounds. The average length forthat year was just over 67.2 inches, with the shortest fish being 42inches and the longest being 87.53 Finally, at the end of the 1908 sea-son in May the Fort Myers News Press reported total catches at 152.The average weight of the fish that year was 91.04 pounds, with thesmallest catch being 14 pounds and the largest being 185 pounds.The average length was 68.4 inches with the shortest catch being14 inches and the longest being 86.54

Although the number of catches increased dramatically in the 1890sand 1900s—over twofold from 1889—neither the average weightnor length decreased to any significant degree. Although the aver-age weight decreased by seventeen pounds over the twenty years,the average length decreased by only a little more than an inch.These findings become telling when the seasons are combinedover the course of the sport’s first generation. If we assume thatthe average number of fish taken per year between seasons 1898and 1908 was 152, for instance, the total number of tarpon caughtand killed in that decade of fishing could have easily exceeded1,500. At that rate, anglers could conceivably have caught upwardsof 4,500 tarpon through three decades of angling. In fact, the aggre-gates were most likely much higher. More catches by hotel patronstook place than those recorded by the region’s presses of course;other anglers not associated with the region’s hotels were catchingfish as well. This would have raised the number of seasonal killsconsiderably higher than the numbers in published lists. Also,Fort Myers’s tarpon industry peaked in the early 1890s, and thecatch numbers were much higher during those seasons than in the

52Charles Ledyard Norton, A Handbook of Florida, 3rd ed. (New York, 1891), 264.53FMNP, Apr. 28, 1898.54FMNP, May 14, 1908.


early twentieth century. According to one Fort Myers News Pressarticle, 152 tarpon were caught in the 1891 season, 260 in 1892,236 in 1893, and 389 in 1894, with the total for those four years atalmost 1,000. This meant that anglers could have caught and killedupwards of 2,500 tarpon in that decade alone.55 The figures pub-lished in 1898 and 1908 thus suggest that even the capture of per-haps many thousands of fish over decades of seasons did notseriously disrupt the health of the fishery. Indeed, although the fish-ing pressure grew dramatically as the sport developed, it did nothave long term, negative consequences for either the population oftarpon or the ecology of the Charlotte Harbor estuary.

A number of factors account for the fish’s resiliency. The completelack of a market quality is the single most compelling explanation.Because it offered no table quality, tarpon were not targeted in alarge-scale, commercial fashion. Also, the fish’s extensive range inother underdeveloped gulf and Caribbean regions surely mitigatedthe seasonal losses sustained in southwest Florida. Because tarponcould be found in the Gulf of Mexico’s offshore waters, in its back-waters, and throughout the Caribbean generally, anglers never hadthe opportunity to target the total population of the fish. One shouldnote that sporting ideology began to shift in the early twentieth cen-tury, and many anglers no longer insisted on killing their fish as thenatural end of their adventure. Sportsmen and their clubs, one suchangler surmised in 1917, “have now introduced sportsmanlikemethods which give a maximum of sport and a minimum of slaugh-ter.”56 “Don’t carry that criminal weapon, the gaff,”wrote photogra-pher and sportsman A.W. Dimmock in 1909. “Don’t murder yourgame.” Instead, cubing each fish’s length in feet and dividing thatby two easily and accurately gave a fish’s weight, and many anglersincreasingly turned to that technique.57

In 1916 one report outlining how a single angler caught a record num-ber of fish in an outing at Boca Grande added, “It should be remarkedin passing that the fish invariably were released.” Anglers were evengoing so far as to use barbless hooks—a shift in technique that made itharder to keep a tarpon hooked, but also one that did not “injure thefish for future usefulness and sport of the angler.”58 Indeed, oneenthusiast in the early 1940s exclaimed that the numbers in Boca

55FMNP, May 17, 1894.56FAS, Feb. 1917, 3.57Dimock, “King Tarpon, The High Leaper of the Sea,” 717.58Louis L. Babcock, The Tarpon (n.p., 1921), 63, 96–97.


Grande and elsewhere were as stunning as they had ever been. “Evena school of five hundred tarpon,” he explained, “the guides will say isno great shucks. From Clearwater to Boca Grande every guide willswear to having seen that many at one time rolling in a long creamingline in the moonlight.” If only 10 percent of a school were visible, asthis angler learned from the area’s guides, “That would mean schoolsof at least five thousand fish.” Additionally, by the 1940s new fishingregulations made it illegal to kill more than one tarpon “per rod pertrip.”59 Tarpon had, therefore, survived the first generation of thesport’s growth. Ultimately, by the 1940s and 1950s, developments insportsmanship and tourism alike guaranteed large tarpon populationsalong the coast of southwest Florida.

Steamer lines and local sporting stores, local fishing guides, sprawl-ing lodges, and start-up settlements all illustrated the germinatingeffect of the silver king on Charlotte Harbor’s economy and devel-opment. In southwest Florida, the growth of these businesses high-lights the broad appeal of tarpon fishing. These trends highlight aswell the mutuality and close connection of the human and nonhu-man worlds in the Charlotte Harbor region.

In particular, sporting lodges provided the boats, provisions, andguides needed to make the adventure successful, and they culledthese resources from local communities. These hotels were theobjects of intense boosterism, many instances from local sources,but sometimes from railroad or steamship operations as well. Forthese reasons, hotels offer a visible way to chart the developmentof the harbor’s towns as they responded to the growth of tarponsport. When tracing the spread of fishing-oriented hotels, it becomesapparent that towns and villages around the harbor responded tothe expansion of angling sport as it approached their particular sec-tion. Anglers wrote a great deal about the places they stayed, andthese reflections are excellent evidence of the influence that tarponsport exerted over onshore communities.

Although some sportsmen steamed direct from the North, and otherseven owned their own yachts, most travelers arrived at CharlotteHarbor by train at Punta Gorda, at its northeast corner, and madetheir way down a long dock that stretched out into the bay.60 There

59Karl A. Bickel, The Mangrove Coast: The Story of the West Coast of Florida (New York,1942), 276, 285.60Turner, Images of America, 10; Cleveland and Williams, Our Fascinating Past, 105–06,107, 115, 122–23.


they boarded steamers offering ferry service further down the coasttoward Pine Island and Fort Myers.61 One company offering this ser-vice from Tampa aptly named its circuit, “The Route of the SilverKing,” using a steamer called the S.S. Tarpon.62 Before 1885 accessto faraway and isolated tarpon angling locations was disorganizedand irregular; steamers expanded their routes to provide service tothe harbor’s extreme locales soon after the sport’s inaugural years,with the S.S. Tarpon highlighting “Tarpon Bay,” among other spotsin an 1886 advertisement, as a place “for anglers to direct theirtravel.”63

Early in the development of the sport, Tarpon Bay—a smaller partof San Carlos Bay at the extreme south of the harbor—was critical.One observant angler suggested in 1887 that this location alone wasthe “best place for an angler” anywhere.64 The first tarpon caught onrod and reel were in this area, and the first two lodges to caterspecifically to the silver king developed in adjacent settlements.The first, located to the south of the Caloosahatchee River, wasPunta Rassa. Originally a Seminole War-era military installationnamed Fort Dulaney, the old army barracks, a fixture on thebeach there, was assigned to George Shultz after the Civil War.Schultz operated the government’s telegraph wire to Havana. Thefort was also well known in Florida’s cattle industry as a shippingdepot and a stopover point for local cowmen.65 After anglers stay-ing in the old fort caught the first silver kings in the sport’s history,it soon became the nationally recognized and cultishly popular“Tarpon House.” The most respected outdoorsmen stayed thereonly in its first seasons, but the place remained successful into thetwentieth century.66

61On steamers in the region, see: Grant, “Tarpon Fishing in Florida,” 158–59; FAS,Apr. 7, 1887, 232; FAS, Mar. 12, 1891, 152; FAS, Apr. 28, 1892, 394; FAS, July 1,1899, 10–11; Ward, The English Angler in Florida, 3–5.62NYT, Feb. 14, 1892, 20.63FMNP, Mar. 27, 1886.64FAS, Apr. 7, 1887, 231.65Punta Rassa was not recorded in the census until 1910, when it reported 121 resi-dents. Thirteenth Census of the United States, 2:306. For the area’s cattle history:Brown, Florida’s Peace River Frontier, 197–200; Joe A. Akerman Jr., Florida Cowman:A History of Florida Cattle Raising (Kissimmee, FL, 1976).66FAS, Dec. 30, 1886, 448; FAS, Apr. 7, 1887, 232; FMNP, Feb. 27, 1886. On the hotel’spopularity: FMNP, Feb. 20, 1908; FMNP, Apr. 15, 1909; FMNP, Apr. 20, 1911. Whenthe old barracks burned down in 1907, not many memorialized it as the lonely armyoutpost first named Fort Dulaney, the Seminole War headquarters of GeneralWinfield Scott, an important Civil War installation, or even a notable piece ofFlorida cracker-cowman history. Instead, it was eulogized as George Shultz’s


Although the Tarpon House held sway with stalwarts as “a sports-man’s resort,” its accommodations were primitive. As the sportexpanded, more grounds and larger hotels—“keeping with thegrandeur of the pastime,” according to one sporting man—weredeveloping. One was constructed across San Carlos Bay fromPunta Rassa on the south of Pine Island at a start-up settlementnamed St. James City.67 “Realizing the climatic and sporting advan-tages” of the harbor, one angler remarked, “a syndicate of wealthygentlemen” purchased this land and built the San Carlos Hotel,which was up and running by the 1887 season. Two years later, itwas reportedly accommodating enough guests to tax its capacity.All were there for “one object—tarpon. Everyone talked ofthat fish—hoped, longed, expected to, or feared he wouldn’tcapture it.”68

This settlement exemplifies the importance of tarpon angling to theregion, because neither the hotel nor the town existed prior to thesport’s development.69 The men who visited the place in its earliestyears made the connection between St. James City’s developmentand its sporting potential. As one angler surmised, anyone “desir-ous to kill a tarpon have hitherto made their head-quarters”there.70 In 1888, another visitor remarked, “Last year’s history hadgone abroad, and there were collected at both St. James and PuntaRassa fishermen from all over the United States, from Canada,and even from England and France.”71 In the 1880s and 1890s,visitors recalled that until recently the area had been “an unbrokenwild,” although “for many years a favorite camping place forfishermen and sportsmen.”72 Others described St. James City asan “enterprise” and the “new paper city on San Carlos Bay.”Guests at the San Carlos hotel were “evidently not consumptives,seeking refuge from the chilly winds of their Northern homes,”but instead were “vigorous and stalwart anglers,” and “bold tarponslayers.”73 Some guests found the conditions substandard, but then

“Tarpon House.” “It is a pity the historic place is destroyed,” Forest and Streamgrieved. “It will probably be rebuilt.” FAS, Jan. 12, 1907, 60.67Grant, “Tarpon Fishing in Florida,” 158; Southworth, “The Silver King,” 665.68FAS, Dec. 20, 1886, 448; FAS, Apr. 7, 1887, 232; FAS, Jan. 19, 1888, 506.69St. James City did not have its own census return until 1930, when 99 people werelisted as residents. Fifteenth Census of the United States: 1930 (Washington, 1931),1:207.70Grant, “Tarpon Fishing In Florida,” 157–58.71FAS, Dec. 27, 1888, 459. Also, FAS, Jan. 19, 1888, 506.72NYT, Feb. 14, 1892, 20; FMNP, Mar. 28, 1889.73FAS, Apr. 7, 1887, 231; FMNP, Mar. 28, 1889.


again, first-class hotels “and the best of fishing are rarely foundtogether.”74 These observations make it clear that the San CarlosHotel was, above all else, a resort for tarpon anglers.

Local commercial fisherman recognized the potential of tarpon-related tourism. Many served as the guides whom sporting menhired to row them to the fishing grounds, give them directionsand advice, and help land fish. When the fishing was in peak sea-son, sportsmen chartered dozens of guides each day, infusingcoastal settlements with greatly needed cash. There was “a consider-able choice in guides,” one angler wrote in 1889, so it was important“for a novice to get a skillful boatman who knows the grounds.”75Although anglers brought their own rods, they also needed boatsand gear, which neighboring communities could provide aswell.76 Generally, one journalist wrote, St. James City was “a villagethat owes its present flourishing condition to the enthusiasm of tar-pon fishermen.”77 In effect, the settlement was founded on tarponfishing.

In 1894 another settlement developed into a resort town that chal-lenged the success of the Tarpon House and soon the San CarlosHotel. Indeed, Fort Myers, which was already experiencing decentdevelopment before sport fishing brought it national attention, pro-pelled tarpon onto the national sporting scene with much more suc-cess than did earlier settlements. Tourists who visited the town in the1890s found that tarpon sport defined Fort Myers’s commerce andidentity. There, on the Caloosahatchee River, adventurers “foundthe fish obdurate,” and the town had become “the headquarters”for all fishermen pursuing the silver king.78 Soon residents werereporting travelers from all over the globe, searching to “try theirluck with the big fish.” The tarpon craze was extending intoEurope, according to one, “and sportsmen from across the oceanmay be expected to journey to Florida expressly to capture the kingfish.”79

74FAS, Dec. 27, 1888, 459.75A sailboat out of St. James City, for instance, cost five dollars per day, rowboatsthree, and bait generally about sixty cents; each could be purchased in town ifanglers had not brought their own. Grant, “Tarpon Fishing In Florida,” 162.76FAS July 1, 1899, 10–11.77Grant, “Tarpon Fishing In Florida,” 157–58.78FAS, June 30, 1894, 556.79FMNP, Mar. 14, 1889.


No other town fostered a boosterish environment quite like FortMyers. This city’s engagement of the silver king is a telling indi-cation of the sport’s potential. The Fort Myers News Press’s “tarponrecord” graced the pages of the paper for more than a decade.When first published in 1892, the chart was updated at variouspoints in each season. Beginning weekly in the spring of 1894, how-ever, it would seem as though every tarpon caught, hooked, orsighted anywhere near the Caloosahatchee found its way into thefront page of the paper. In one May 1894 edition, the catches totaled389 and spread across several pages.80

Local press reports for the 1898 season are particularly revealing. Interms of newspaper space, fishing competed that year with anotherevent of great interest in southwest Florida: the Spanish-AmericanWar. Still, the silver king fought gamely against the war for head-lines. “Battleship Maine Blown Up” was the most prominent head-line in a February edition, for instance, but was situated directlyabove a larger “First Tarpon of the Season” announcement.81Incredibly, as spring progressed, the war on the Spanish seemedto lose to the war on tarpon, at least headline-wise, its coverage con-stantly sidelined by the “Official Tarpon Record for 1898.” The listconsistently appeared at the center of the front page and becamelarger as the season bore on. Some war headlines sacrificed to thetarpon action: “Maine Undoubtedly Blown Up by a Mine” (March10); “The President’s Message” and “Looks Like War!” (April 14);“Ordered to Mobilize” and “To Arm Florida” (April 21); and“Latest War News,” “Condensed War News,” and “MatanzasCaptured!” (April 28).

The press certainly did have the right to glow with enthusiasmover the blossoming industry. Catalyzed by fishing-related com-merce, the town’s population grew dramatically through the latenineteenth and early twentieth century. In 1890, only 575 peoplelived in Fort Myers. That number almost doubled to 943 withinthe decade, and by 1910, had tripled again to over 3,000.82 The sea-sonal visitors that fished the Caloosahatchee and its surroundingwaters sparked this increase. They patronized local hotels forweeks at a time, and even those who stayed aboard their ownships depended on the ice and provisions from local stores.Anglers also employed guides from Fort Myers—sometimes entire

80FMNP, May 17, 1894.81FMNP, Feb. 17, 1898.82Thirteenth Census of the United States, 2:306.


families—who earned daily, cash wages for their expertise. In 1892,one angler reported securing the services of a reputable guide in thetown for six dollars a day. He felt comfortable enough dealing withthe area’s guides to name the best ones and also to warn his friendsabout some of the less reliable ones. The best guides in the region,another angler concluded, came from Fort Myers.83

As sporting man A. S. Binion asserted, the town’s prosperity was adirect result of the silver king’s popularity. This particular enthu-siast was writing from the Hendry House—one of several smalllodges in the area—and he reported all rooms full during the 1892season. Everything there “speaks of tarpon”—even the walls werelined with them.84 Louis A. Hendry, the owner, was also offeringa cash prize to the guest who caught a tarpon over 205 pounds,the record at that time, and an engraved trophy to the angler whocaught the largest silver king of the season. Other small hotels inthe area endeavored to do the same, including the Hotel Bradford,the Fort Thompson Park Hotel, the Hill House, and the HotelMarco.85

In 1898, the sweeping Hotel Fort Myers—later renamed the RoyalPalm—was constructed on the waterfront in downtown FortMyers.86 The lodge advertised tarpon as one of its star pursuitsfor multiple seasons. From anglers’ accounts, it dominated the har-bor’s fishing scene almost immediately after its opening. Althoughthe hotel was built in a modern style, with all the comforts FortMyers could provide, it seems that as with St. James City, PuntaRassa, and other spartan places along Charlotte Harbor, peoplecared a great deal more about the fishing prospects than they didthe amenities. By 1903, the most vocal complaints about the hotelconcerned its seasonal hours. Anglers grumbled that by the begin-ning of summer, when the fishing was just peaking, the hotel closedits doors. “It is to be regretted,” a booster remarked in the Fort MyersNews Press, “that the house should close just at the height of tarponseason” in April, “when such good sport is being had right near thehotel.” Why not stay open at least until the first of June, sportsmencomplained, and cater to fishermen who wished to stay through theheight of the season?87 Two years later, after the hotel again closedits doors too soon during a productive season, boosters griped that

83FAS, Mar. 17, 1892, 255; FAS, July 1, 1899, 10–11.84FAS, Apr. 28, 1892, 394.85FMNP, Mar. 21, 1892; Grismer, Story of Fort Myers, 142–44.86Grismer, Story of Fort Myers, 142, 144.87FMNP, Apr. 2, 1903.


up to its closure, the Royal Palm had benefited from one of its bestyears yet. It was a shame then “that this business did not warrantkeeping the house open until May 1st or even the 10th.” Thetown’s reputation as a fishing resort rested almost entirely “on hertarpon fishing in April and May,” and there was no excuse for itsflagship hotel closing during such a prosperous time. The nextyear, after a similar closure, a frustrated press bluntly protestedthat the hotel’s early closing most likely “had something to dowith keeping anglers accustomed to come here in April, away.”Boosters like the editor of the Fort Myers News Press illustrate a com-munity that actively sought anglers and were concerned withaccommodations that did not expand as the sport outgrew the tra-ditional leisure season. Soon, however, other hotels appeared tochallenge the winter hours of the Royal Palm. By the early twentiethcentury, hotels such as the Bradford Inn catered faithfully to sports-men late into the summer months. These newer hotels vied for thepatronage of anglers with the Royal Palm Hotel, which becamemore flexible.88

Figure 4. “Royal Palm Hotel—Fort Myers, Florida,” 1912. Courtesy of FloridaPhotographic Collection, RC08824.

88FMNP, Apr. 20, 1905; FMNP, Apr. 26, 1906.


Other businesses emerged in Fort Myers that were clearly influ-enced by the fishing culture. “TARPON ARE HERE,” read theadvertisement headline of a local sporting-goods store, assuringsportsmen that they could catch the grand fish if properly equippedby local merchants. Another sporting shop, owned by localH. A. Hendry, also advertised in the Fort Myers News Press, urginganglers to “secure your tarpon outfit at the proper place.”Photographer E. M. Williams offered to record anglers with theircatches. “The Tarpon Restaurant” served meals at all hours, andthe Silver King Bar and Billiard Hall featured the finest billiards inSouth Florida.89

Upon gaining prominence in the 1890s, Fort Myers held its com-mand of the sport for over a generation, as sportsmen continuedto flood into the region every spring. The fishing “now has a repu-tation that has spread across the waters of the Atlantic,” the NewsPress proclaimed in 1897. Three years later, the town celebrated per-haps its most successful season ever. From almost the first week, theRoyal Palm “has been crowded with guests and it remained so untilthe time for closing came.”90 It was safe to say, the press gushed,that the hotel was “more successful than any other hotel on theWest Coast, not only from a social standpoint but from a financialstandpoint also.”91 In 1904, the Atlantic Coast Line Railwayextended a line to the town. As “the tropical city on the tropicalCaloosahatchee is at last connected with the railway systems ofthe country,” the flow of outdoorsmen to the town’s resorts roseaccordingly. “Fort Myers Sustains Her Reputation As the GreatestTarpon Fishing Resort,” the paper proclaimed as that season boreto a close.92 The town inaugurated the “Caloosahatchee Fishingand Hunting Club” in 1909. Until 1912 the press still proclaimedthat there was no “better hotel to be found in the state” for tarponfishing than the Royal Palm.93

While the Fort Myers sporting industry remained prosperous wellinto the twentieth century, the region’s development continuedbeyond the Caloosahatchee. After the fishing pressure began toshift away from Charlotte Harbor’s backwaters and toward itsgulf inlets, so did expansion. The less-than-ideal location of the

89Advertisements in FMNP, Feb. 27, 1896; FMNP, May 7, 1891; FMNP, Feb. 4, 1897;FMNP, Feb. 20, 1908; and FMNP, Mar. 23, 1911.90FMNP, May 13, 1897; FMNP, Apr. 26, 1900.91FMNP, Apr. 26, 1900.92FMNP, Mar. 20, 1902; FMNP, May 12, 1904; FMNP, Apr. 28, 1904.93FMNP, Apr. 11, 1912.


passes in relation to the harbor’s already-established lodges explainsthe appearance of closer, more well-appointed options. From eitherSt. James City or Fort Myers, for instance, a voyage to Boca GrandePass could take hours, cutting an angler’s fishing time down con-siderably. The only available hotels in the direct vicinity of thearea’s coastal passes were small operations that did not cater wellto anglers; the only true sporting options were a few large house-boats converted into hotels which were anchored in the inletsduring the season.94

Useppa Island provided the perfect location for a large sportinglodge to fill that gap. The small island is situated between CayoCosta to the west and Pine Island to the east. Boca Grande Pass isdirectly to the northwest, and Captiva Pass to the southwest.Successful midwestern entrepreneur John M. Roach bought theisland in 1894 and began building the Useppa Inn—also knownas the Tarpon Inn—on its northern tip.95 One group made a shorttrip there in 1903 to find a “comfortable resort well filled withguests.” An “ideal spot for fishermen,” the island and hotel werealmost equal distances from both Boca Grande and CaptivaPasses, offering tarpon fishing which “cannot be excelled anywherein the world.”96 It certainly was, according to the Fort Myers NewsPress in 1909, “the Utopia of all for those who love angling.”Although guests found the accommodations acceptable for an other-wise isolated island, one visitor concluded that “everything is madesubservient to fishing.”97 Another expressed chagrin that “winterresorts” like it catered too heavily to their angler patrons and onlysomewhat to the rest of their clientele. Although the fishing wasgreat, the hotels were far too rustic, and the inn managers were“totally regardless of the comfort of their guests.”98 Such complaintsunderscored the close connection between the spread of hotelsaround the harbor and the region’s allure to sporting men whocared less about the conditions of the lodge than they did aboutthe great fishing prospects.

94The small hotels near Captiva Pass included the Gulf View Cottage, Casa Ybel,and the Captiva House on Sanibel and Captiva Islands. For information on the float-ing hotel in Captiva Pass, see: FAS, Mar., 19, 1898, 231. For the floating hotel in BocaGrande Pass, see: FMNP, Mar. 10, 1898; FMNP, Apr. 8, 1897; Eleanor H.D. Pearse,Florida’s Vanishing Era: From the Journals of a Young Girl and Her Father, 1887–1910(Winnetka, IL: 1947), 38; Ward, English Angler in Florida, 56.95Edic, Fisherfolk of Charlotte Harbor, 44.96FMNP, Mar. 19, 1903; Aflalo, Sunshine and Sport, 92–93.97FMNP, Mar. 18, 1909; Aflalo, Sunshine and Sport, 92–93; FAS, Sept. 14, 1907, 418.98FAS, Sept. 14, 1907, 418.


The guides available at the Useppa Inn also suggest the impact oftarpon on the region’s economy. According to one resident, “allthe fishing guides of [the] area” could be found there during the tar-pon season. Many local guides were commercial fishermen who sawopportunities for additional income in tarpon sport. One guidefished commercially for mullet in the off-season months, but “ofcourse, when the tourists were in, he was a fishing guide.” Likethose in Fort Myers, these were local men “who had their roots inthe area’s rich fishing traditions.” Every morning, the guides hadtheir boats towed by a steam launch to the pass, where they metup with prospective anglers ferried from the hotels. At Useppa,these men usually earned five dollars a day for an average ofthree hours of service in the morning, and three in the afternoon.The inn also provided its boatmen with awards for exceptionalwork, including diamond pins for prize catches.99 Used to therugged life of commercial fishermen, the local guides realized thatguide work was “very convenient and saves much time.”100

Figure 5. “Tarpon scales on the wall—Useppe Island, Florida,” 1920s. Courtesyof Florida Photographic Collection, N044241.

99“Freddie Futch Interview,” typescript in Boca Grande Historical Society, BocaGrande, Florida. Newer pass fishing techniques demanded experienced guidescapable of navigating the tricky and sometimes-dangerous waters of the harbor’scoastal passes. On such dangers, FAS, July 1, 1899, 10–11.100FMNP, Mar. 18, 1909; Edic, Fisherfolk of Charlotte Harbor, 44; “Freddie Futch


The Fort Myers News Press began including Useppa’s catches in the1902 season’s weekly counts. That same year, Forest and Streamremarked that it had the “Best Tarpon Fishing in the World.” TheNews Press recognized the first fish of the 1903 season as havingbeen captured there, and early in 1909, one headline read:“Tarpon Season is On: Guests at Useppa Beginning to Make GoodCatches: The Inn is Headquarters.”101 Useppa reached its peakaround 1910, when it gained daily steamer service to the rail term-inal at Boca Grande. The Useppa Inn chartered an Izaak WaltonClub in 1912, dedicated to “promoting the interests of anglers inthe waters of Charlotte harbor.” Among its activities, the cluboffered gold and silver buttons for tarpon catches, published abook annually containing the official tarpon catch record, and pro-vided bulletins weekly throughout the season. “Society is givingup its golf clubs,” the New York Times reported from the island in1912, “for the tarpon rod.”102

Useppa enjoyed its premiere location well through the turn of thecentury and grew successful catering to tarpon anglers. As BocaGrande Pass began to replace Captiva Pass in popularity, however,the lodge’s location was not as good as many anglers wished. Theresulting shift in activity was the last significant development inthe region based around the popularity of tarpon as a sport fish.From Useppa, Boca Grande Pass was still an inconvenient commuteof five miles, and it did not take long for anglers to desire a closerlocation, particularly after a railroad was built into the small townof Boca Grande in 1911. Truth be told, one guest leveled, “UseppaIsland is inconveniently far from the Pass, but it is the nearestterra firma accommodation available.”103 Another angler hadalready expressed these sentiments in 1899, arguing that there was“no finer place in Florida to put up a large hotel than onGasparilla Island.”104 Business interests promoting Boca Grande asa luxurious tourist destination felt similarly and soon began eyeingthe pass and its impressive fishing. By 1909, they had decided toerect a world-class hotel at the railroad’s terminus, and the

Interview,” Boca Grande Historical Society; Aflalo, Sunshine and Sport, 92–93; FAS,Sept. 14, 418.101FMNP, Apr. 2, 1902; FMNP, May 12, 1902; FMNP, Mar. 12, 1903; FMNP, Apr. 8,1909; FAS, Dec. 20, 1902, x.102Charles B. Reynolds, Florida Standard Guide (New York, 1921), 95; NYT, Apr. 2,1912, 14.103Aflalo, Sunshine and Sport, 92–93.104FAS, July 1, 1899, 10–11.


twenty-room Gasparilla Inn was completed by the 1911 season.105Possibly realizing the location’s potential, owners soon orderedrenovations under a contract with Frank Abbott, manager of theRoyal Palm Hotel in Fort Myers. So, for the 1912 season, theGasparilla Inn reopened at double its previous size and under first-class management.106

Local residents, who knew “the tricks of the tides and the tarpon,”provided guide service for the guests. Some guides were availableon site, living in a separate wing of the hotel.107 Gasparilla formeda Pelican Club as its answer to Useppa’s Izaak Walton Club.108One local guide remembered the importance of this sportinggroup, which he described as “a fraternity of fishing enthusiasts

Figure 6. “Gasparilla Inn—Boca Grande, Florida,” 1920s. Courtesy of FloridaPhotographic Collection, PR00970.

105Anthony B. Arnold, “A Brief History of Boca Grande” in Boca Grande: A Series ofHistorical Essays, ed. Charles Dana Gibson (Boca Grande, 1982), 122–24; “BocaGrande Florida,” pamphlet printed by the Gasparilla Island Association, 1920,Special Collections, University of South Florida, 7–8. FMNP, Mar. 28, 1907;FMNP, Apr. 7, 1910; Cleveland and Williams, Our Fascinating Past, 178.106Arnold, “A Brief History of Boca Grande,” 124–25.107“Boca Grande Florida,” 30–31; Dimock and Dimock, Florida Enchanments, 19–20.According to one fishing guide, these quarters included rooms, docks, and boat slipsfor the use of the guides. “Freddie Futch Interview, ” Boca Grande Historical Society.108“Boca Grande Florida,” 30–31; The Gasparilla Inn & Club, “Our History,” http://www.the-gasparilla-inn.com/about_history.php (accessed Dec. 13, 2007).


from the Gasparilla Inn.” He guided various members of the “hun-dreds of well to-to-do visitors” who came to the hotel for its “worldclass tarpon fishing and life style,” while supplementing his incomewith various off-season jobs.109

Boca Grande and Useppa islands continued to thrive for decadesafter the initial wave of the sport’s spectacular success. Like FortMyers, businessmen on both islands expanded hotel operationsmore to suit anglers once they realized that the tarpon seasonextended well beyond March or April. In 1921, the Tarpon Inn atUseppa had extended its season to the last days of May.Competing hotels were by then leaving their doors open throughoutthe summer. In Boca Grande, anglers increasingly stayed until lateJuly, with lodges now readily accommodating them in the formeroff-season months.110 The Palmetto Hotel, for example, offered tar-pon anglers lodging late into July “and can care of thirty to fortyguests at one time,” arranging for guides as well.111

Figure 7. “Boats and guide quarters,” 1910s. Courtesy of Florida PhotographicCollections, PR00984.

109Sam Whidden biography in “Freddie Futch Interview,” Boca Grande HistoricalSociety.110FAS, Sept. 1921, 407–08.111Ibid.; also FAS, Mar. 1923, 123.


When the sport began to cool on these islands in the 1920s and1930s, this should not be attributed to a decline in the lure of tarponto sporting men. Instead, the industry simply expanded beyond theconfines of Charlotte Harbor. Passes in Texas and Mexico had luredanglers as early as the 1890s, but because of underdevelopment, thelack of booster support, and the difficulty of transportation, theseand other regions on the Gulf and Atlantic coasts did not developuntil the early twentieth century.112 By 1917, one angler reportedthat the sport was fine “at such well known places” as PortAransas, Texas; Useppa Island, St. Petersburg, Florida; andTampico, Mexico. In 1923, the destinations were even more varied:“Every year you find more men and women at South Boca Grande,St. Petersburg, Miami, Charlotte Harbor, Fort Myers, Long Key,St. James City, Tarpon Springs, Homosassa, Sanibel Island,Bradentown, Marco, Cayo Costa and other places along the easternand western Florida coasts, all seeking tarpon.”113 In the 1940s, tar-pon tournaments, “held by almost every community from TarponSprings to Everglades City,” generally started in mid-May and fin-ished as late as August. Sarasota reportedly claimed to have con-ducted “the oldest continuous tarpon tournament in the world,”but that was open to debate because so many had taken place in ear-lier years.114 As the development of Florida and the Gulf Coastregion continued in the early twentieth century, anglers realizedthat other coastal communities held tarpon prospects as well, andas more sporting men ventured elsewhere, the dominance ofCharlotte Harbor began to recede.

When charting Florida’s development, it is important to recognizethat it was not simply a leisure industry, but a tarpon fishing indus-try that gave birth to the lodges that stretched along the southwes-tern coast. This culture seeded, to a great degree, the region’smodern sporting-related commerce. Tarpon angling germinated asa popular leisure sport during the pre-World War I decades, andthe tourism associated with it shaped Florida in a foundationalway. Outdoor adventures like tarpon angling thus illustrate adistinctive type of mutual relationship between human andnon-human species in which the consequences for humans wereas dramatic as those for the fish.

112On Aransas Pass, Texas, FAS, July 21, 1892, 54; FAS, July 21, 1894, 52; FAS, Sept. 5,1896, 187; FAS, July 13, 1901, 26; FAS, July 15, 1905, 52. On the Mexican fishery: FAS,Dec. 23, 1905, 518; FAS, May 6, 1911, 715.113FAS, Jan. 1917, 8; FAS, Jan. 1923, 11.114Bickel, Mangrove Coast, 276.


Several aspects of southwest Florida’s coastal marine andhuman ecology, and especially at Charlotte Harbor, illustrate suchrelationships. This region contained all of the environments necess-ary to support tarpon throughout their life cycle. At the same time,the tarpon’s lack of commercial quality allowed the fish to escapethe destructive pace of market angling. This, in addition to theexpansive habitat and migratory nature of the fish and the changingideology of sport fishing, allowed the population to remain in asustainable state despite heavy fishing pressure. The presence oftarpon, meanwhile, fueled southwest Florida’s sporting-relatedeconomic expansion. Steamer and railroad lines, local stores and ser-vices, and local guide businesses all appeared in response to tarponangling. Most visible were the hotels that marked the physicalexpansion of the sport around Charlotte Harbor’s coastlines.These lodges offer the strongest evidence that offshore speciesheld the potential to shape onshore communities and even entireregions in significant ways—an environmental analysis that candoubtless be applied elsewhere in the history of outdoor sport.

In 1967 Marjory Stoneman Douglas wrote that Florida’s “singlemost important tourist attraction since the first tarpon was caughtin the nineties with a light line and rod and reel is fishing.” Ittook place “in every inlet and bay, river and lake in the state, andaround all the coasts, especially on the west, from Tampa to KeyWest,” and it catalyzed “all the related industries of boats andboat yards, bait, tackle, marine supplies, to say nothing of taxider-mists, sea-food restaurants, fish canning and frozen fish export.”This renowned fishing culture can be tied directly to southwestFlorida’s emergence as a hub for tarpon sport in the late nineteenthand early twentieth centuries.115

By the early twenty-first century, as one historian has suggested,there was no longer a great deal of tarpon fishing pressure onCaptiva Pass.116 Not much of a tarpon culture existed in placeslike Punta Gorda, Punta Rassa, or Fort Myers either. The seal ofCharlotte County, however—containing the lion’s share ofCharlotte Harbor—still featured a jumping tarpon, and the atmos-phere on Boca Grande or Useppa Islands still reflected the sport’sfeverish prime. There the silver king obsession remained an integralpart not only of these islands’ local identity, but their national imageas well. At the height of the silver king craze, however, in say 1906,

115Marjory Stoneman Douglas, Florida: The Long Frontier (New York, 1967), 274–75.116Ward, English Angler in Florida, 3–4.


many thousands of sporting men across the country were fixedsquarely on the region’s bright future with the sport. “Fort Myersand the Gulf Coast . . . retain their position as the greatest fishingresort in the country,” one noted. “Royal sport is now being had.”117

117FMNP, Apr. 26, 1906.


“In The Land of the Tarpon”: The Silver King, Sport, and the Development of Southwest Florida,...

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