By Marcy Shortuse
Photos submitted
Capt. Marian Schneider with contractor
Dean Robert Philps. Below, a big “thank
you” is in order.
If these walls could talk, what a tale they would tell. This old
bridgetender’s house, the one that used to sit just off the railroad trestle
at the north end of Gasparilla Island, where the old drawbridge used to
be, now has a new home in Blairsville, Ga.
So many stories have been written about the railroad that ran to Boca Grande, but one forlorn
piece of that history that was moved off-island 25 years ago left the state of Florida with little
fanfare and minimal recognition in late spring of this year.
After spending more than two decades on the old Grande Tours property on Placida
Road. Capt. Marian Schneider, the former owner of Grande Tours, couldn’t bear to see old
bridgetender’s building destroyed … so she took it with her to Georgia.
