Crane Point

This past week Keith and I decided to explore Crane Point Museum and Nature Center.  This was about a 2 mile bike ride from the marina.  It is part of the city of Marathon on Vaca Key. (There are actually 7 small keys or islands that make up the city of Marathon.)  It turned out to be a really nice place with a guided tour that was very helpful in pulling together the history of the area around Marathon.

Crane Point consists of about 60 acres of habitat with many native trees and wildlife.  There are numerous trails and a natural history museum, interactive exhibits for both adults and kids, a reproduction cracker house (a style of house typical of early Key's settlers), and a wild bird rescue center.  There are also two other homes on the property (I will describe them as I explain some of the history).

Trail in Crane Point

Pengi along for the the adventure

It was hard to watch for snakes with all the tree roots over some of the trails (sandals may have been a rookie choice of footwear).

A Gumbo Limbo tree also called the "tourist tree" because of its reddish and peeling bark.  (get it? red and peeling---tourist tree).

The first people believed to have inhabited the area were native Americans.  Some artifacts have been found in the area and are on display in the museum.  But settlement was VERY sparse until the 1900's, and even then it was a very challenging place to live.  George Adderley was a Bahamian immigrant that came to the area in the 1890's and around 1900 purchased 30 acres at what is now Crane Point.  There he build his home, a Bahamian style tabby house ( walls made with a type of concrete of equal parts sand, lime, shells and water).  It is the oldest house in the keys outside of Key West.

George Adderley House (the roof would have originally been thatched but changed to a solid roof once the East Coast Railway came through with building supplies George could purchase)

The native hammock is so thick here it is hard to imagine the difficulty George Adderley must have had to clear land just to build his house.  A hammock is a stand of native hardwood trees that usually grow on land only several inches above sea level.  Just several inches difference can lead to ground that will not support hardwoods and instead mangroves and other similar vegetation will be found.

Palm Fronds were traditionally used for thatching roofs.  Our guide told us that many thatched roofs are now imitation (synthetic) palm fronds.  Harvesting the fronds can only be done by native Americans or their direct descendants and so a true palm thatched roof requires native American harvested palm.

Thatch Palms at Cranes Point

Adderley supported himself and his wife Olivia by harvesting sponges and turtles, and producing charcoal.  He would take his goods via his sailboat from his home in Marathon to Key West to sell and then bring back any needed supplies.  This round trip would take several days.  It was around 1908 when the Florida East Coast Railway (spearheaded by Henry Flagler) approached Adderley for a right-of-way across part of his property.  Adderley negotiated a life-time pass to ride the railway as well as having it make a stop at his property.  This allowed him to use the train, once it was completed, to ride back and forth to Key West instead of sailing.  This reduced his round trip substantially.  The train stop also eventually became important to the future growth of the town of Marathon.

Rachel Creek was used by George Adderley to take his boat from his house out into the Gulf of Mexico to hunt sponges and turtles.  The creek is salt water and tidal.  There is actually very little fresh water on the point.  Fresh water was a valued commodity.

Pengi at Rachel Creek

View of the Gulf of Mexico from the point

After living on his property for nearly a half century, George Adderley sold the property in the 1950's to Massachusetts couple Francis and Mary Crane.  The couple built a modern house on the point overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and spent their winters there.  They were avid conservationists and horticulturalists who worked to preserve the natural hammock of the property.  The Cranes sold the land in 1970 and luckily The Florida Land Trust eventually was able to step in and buy the land.  They made it into a nature preserve and educational site.  

A reproduction "cracker house" with exhibits inside is also on site.  A cracker house was a style used by many early Key's settlers.  It was a wooden house structure with a porch that often rapped around the entire house to provide shade for the windows and walls.

Porch on the "cracker house"

One of the raptors from the Wild Bird Rescue Center

He was puffing up for his picture

Our visit to Crane Point was a nice couple hours out and about.  This coming weekend we will have friends from North Carolina visiting.  So far the weather looks good and we are looking forward to their visit.