harbor. Silt and pesticides making their way into
the harbor have killed the seagrass – the first link
in the aquatic food chain.”
The discovery in the 1880s of pebble
phosphate in the Peace River just south of
Arcadia generated a “phosphate rush,” with fierce
competition among fertilizer companies to
acquire phosphate-bearing lands in the Peace
River basin. The major player in this land-grabbing
effort was a fertilizer conglomerate formed in
1899, called the American Agricultural Chemical
Company, or AACCo for short. Once AACCo
was mining and processing phosphate ore, the
company had to have a suitable deep-water port
not too far from the mines, where the phosphate
could be stored and loaded onto ocean-going
vessels.
The site chosen in about 1903 was the south
end of Gasparilla Island, which borders Boca
Grande Pass, a deep-water channel linking the
Gulf to Charlotte Harbor. In 1905, AACCo
started construction of a railroad that, by 1907,
extended from Port Boca Grande – as it became
known – to Arcadia. By 1912, the line, called the
Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway
(CH&N), extended all the way up to Mulberry. At
Achan, east of Mulberry, CH&N joined the
Atlantic Coast Line(or ACL), and at Bradley
Junction, the Seabord Airline Railway, which
extended from Lakeland and Plant City to Tampa
and Jacksonville.
Although AACCo used the CH&N to deliver
phosphate and other exportable items to Port
Boca Grande, it soon realized that the line's
profitability could be enhanced by using its
facilities to ship iced fish in insulated boxcars to
cities in the southeast and northeast. Accordingly,
around 1916, the Charlotte Harbor & Northern
Railway (AACCo's proxy) built several fish
houses for storage of iced fish along the railroad
right-of-way on the eastern side of Gasparilla
Island's north end next to the small fishing hamlet
that came to be known as Gasparilla.
When local ice manufacture put an end to the
salt fishery operated at the Peacon’s Fish Ranch
(situated about half a mile to the south of where
the CH&N's ice houses were constructed), many
of the fishermen previously based at Peacon's
Ranch moved to Gasparilla and began to catch
fish for delivery to the new system of ice houses
set up by the Punta Gorda fish companies.
According to Gasparilla Island historian Gibson,
the settlement at Peacon's Cove remained
occupied until about 1916.
Gradually, Gasparilla became a bona-fide village,
with a school, post office, and a general store
operated by the town's leading citizen, Gus Cole.
In 1916, AACCo shrewdly gave the village a large
boost by constructing 16 houses for rental by
fishermen and their families. At its peak — during
the era between the two world wars —
Gasparilla became a busy center of fishing activity
with catches delivered to the two ice houses,
from which the iced fish were transferred to
insulated, ice-cooled CH&N boxcars for shipment
north.
In the 1940s, refrigerated trucks gradually took
over from the railroads much of the job of
delivering iced fish to urban markets. In addition,
Port Tampa began to displace Port Boca Grande
as the preferred terminal from which to export
phosphate.
Fish houses at the north end of
the island in the town formerly
known as Gasparilla, circa 1920.
54GASPARILLA ISLAND September/October 2019
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