Monthly Archives: March 2024

Historic Hill Photos Planning 1923 “Stuart Deepwater Harbor”

“Manatee Pocket,” Port Salerno, just inside the St. Lucie Inlet and adjacent to Sewall’s Point turning basin. Courtesy of Stuart High School graduate Mrs. Tootsie Haggard Kindberg who shared her rare Hill Florida Photographic Concern historic photographs taken in the early 1920s.

Original document for U.S. Government explaining photographs to be used to secure creation of Stuart’s “deepwater harbor” signed in 1923 by Stanley Kitching, Stuart Commercial Club. This document is transcribed above by Sandra Thurlow.

It is sobering to study history. So many of our region’s early dreams, desires, and economics were tied to the St. Lucie Canal (1916-1924) and also building a gigantic deep water harbor, “Port Stuart,” just inside the St. Lucie Inlet that would have been located in the region of Sewall’s Point and Salerno’s Manatee Pocket. Because of local resident, Mrs. Tootsie Kindberg, who shared her rare Hill Florida Photographic Concern collection, we now have major insight into this era.

For context, in a January 11, 1923 Stuart News article entitled “For All Florida,” Stanley Kitching, president of the Stuart Commercial Club, speaks of the importance of sharing these photographs. Kitching argues the photographs prove need to the U.S. Government for a port to help extract the untaped riches of the St. Lucie region- as this deep water port or harbor would be connected not only to the St. Lucie Canal, but also to Lake Okeechobee.

In support of her friend Tootsie, my mother historian Sandra Thurlow has transcribed a Stuart Messenger article written on January 18, 1923. It is a documentation of the meeting with the U.S. government about funding the deepwater harbor. The attendee read like a “who’s who list.” Although this dream did not materialize in full, thankfully, it must be studied.

I want to thank Mrs. Tootsie Haggard Kindberg who shared her family’s historic photos that were the inspiration for this post. Please look through them and read the article! Looking backwards, we can more clearly navigate what lies before us. To have these photographs all in one place in a very scattered world is a gift. Thank you Mrs. Kindberg!

My mother wrote: “Bette then Betty Haggard (R) was in the tenth grade in your dad’s 1954 Stuart High yearbook.”

Stuart Messenger, January 18,1923. Article transcribed below by Sandra Thurlow.

ENGINEERS HEAR PROOF OF THE NEED OF INLET OPENING

“100 Year Anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal,” a pamphlet

Although it is nothing to celebrate, it is important to know that this year is the 100 year anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal…

I had a goal last year, and that goal was to start writing a book on the history of the St. Luice Canal. I was very fortunate to have plenty of support with materials from the Jacksonville Army Corp of Engineers, the South Florida Water Management District, Dr. Gary Goforth, my mother, historian Sandra Thurlow, and my brother Todd Thurlow, author of the eyeonlakeo website. I started with a series of blog posts in 2023 that helped me get oriented.

By June 19, 2023, after over four years of dedicated service, I had not been reconfirmed by the Senate or reappointed by the Governor to the Governing Board of the South Florida Water Management District. As usual, I had spoken up and ruffled feathers; this time in my opposition to Senate Bill 2508. I was crushed but proud not to have been intimidated by power, or to have conformed to something less than what I believed in. I left with my soul intact as an outspoken and passionate advocate for the St. Lucie River, for that and for my service I am grateful.

During that difficult time of transition, my mother, as she has done multiple times in my life, provided opportunity and direction. “Jacqui I am going to write a book on the history of Palm City, would you co-author with me?” I was stunned as I knew nothing about Palm City except it was a cow pasture when I was a kid, but I did know something about the St. Lucie Canal and C-23 Canals that have absolutely shaped Palm City. Mom and I have been working for almost a year now and the book, A Pictorial History of Palm City, will be published by the end of 2024. So, I never wrote my book on the history of the St. Lucie Canal, but I was able to participate in something much more valuable, working together and learning from my amazing mother.

About a month ago, I put together this general information pamphlet entitled “100 Year Anniversary of the St. Lucie Canal.” Yes, it has been 100 years!

This light pamphlet is coming in handy, perhaps even more than a book, during this 2024 round of Lake Okeechobee discharges. I know we are all saddened by the continued degradation of our waters. The way I look at it is that environmental issues are cultural issues taking centuries to change. We are and have been part of that change. Never be discouraged when you are on the right side of history! ~Copies are available at the Stuart Heritage Museum or just call me at 772-486-3818.

L.O. Discharge Aerial Update 3-4-24

Yesterday, March 4, 2024 around 11:00am, my husband Ed flew Captain’s for Clean Water videographer Noah Miller over the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon. Noah and his community, on the west coast of South Florida, share in the adversity of Lake Okeechobee discharges. The Caloosahatchee is our sister river and has been for 100 years.

This year heavy discharges to the St. Lucie began February 17, 2024. There was a reprieve for four days, and then the discharges started again on Saturday, March 2nd. Thus these aerials were taken only two days after the estuary had a four day break from her killer. He let her catch her breath, and then it began again…

Today salinity is only 4.4 at the Roosevelt Bridge as documented by my brother Todd’s website eyeonlakeo!

Today, I am sharing some of the photographs that Ed took. There were 92 and I have paired them down; however, in many cases, especially the bare seagrass meadows, I have included multiple shots. I was also struck by the composition of the lands: Sewall’s Point, Hell’s Gate, Hutchinson Island, Stuart, Rocky Point, Jensen, Rio, Palm City, the St. Lucie Inlet State Park and the St. Lucie Inlet. A puzzle sculpted by time. Such a magnificent place! With the marriage of temperate and tropic zones, this area was once considered “the most bio-diverse estuary in North America,” as documented by famous fish scientists like Dr. Grant Gilmore. But over the years, especially since 2013, the St. Lucie has been ravaged by wretchedly dark polluted water from Lake Okeechobee and cyanobacteria known commonly as “toxic algae.”

When things seems hopeless or decades away, what can one do?

Continue to shine the light…

~Noah Miller of Captains for Clean Water takes video as Ed pilots the plane, a Van’s RV. ~Bird Island, below, sits off Sewall’s Point, with over 17 threatened/endangered species. This is nesting time but there is little food to feed the chicks.

Below are ACOE discharge release schedules. Discharges are determined by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in consultation with the South Florida Water Management District that acts as the “local sponsor” of the Central and South Florida Project both agencies manage. Years ago, there was little awareness or care about the destruction of the environment, but today we know better. The waste of fresh water into the ocean, the absolute carnage caused to the St. Lucie River/Indian River Lagoon, fish, benthic creatures, oysters, birds, mammals depending on food from it, not to mention the slow death caused to our near shore reefs–today this kind of water management is unacceptable. Try as we may for something better, we are not achieving it fast enough to leave future generations here anything but an empty cornucopia.

Palm City’s Once Wonderful Sailfish Lodge

~ A tidbit from our upcoming book, A Pictorial History of Palm City, Florida, Sandra Thurlow & Jacqui Thurlow-Lippisch

**Sailfish Lodge, Palm City, Florida, ca. 1950, was located on today’s 34th Street. (Thurlow Ruhnke Collection)**

Its brochure read: “Off the Highway and out of town. Sailfish Lodge. No train noises. No Highway traffic roar. Across the bridge from Stuart’s shopping area, railroad, bus station and theatre. At our club dock, you may obtain boats for river fishing. By the week. By the month. For a joyous season. Vacation in comfort.”

Sailfish Lodge was built by Linwood Simmons. It stood on 26 acres acquired in 1946. The acreage included 300 feet of waterfront with a view over Palm City Bay looking to the Palm City Bridge.

Cottages were built in 1946 and the lodge itself in 1948. The lodge was two story and measured 35 by 155 feet featuring a gigantic fireplace. Visiting sportsmen were offered access to both fresh and saltwater fishing and hunters were provided with a woods buggy and guides.

It was a family affair and just about everything they needed was right there. Pine trees on the property even supplied the building lumber. The Simmons family operated the lodge for 20 years. It was beloved and popular. Mr. and Mrs. Simmons grew old, and their children grew up on this fabulous Palm City property.

By 1969, Mrs. Simmons passed and Mr. Simmons later moved to Winter Haven; the property was sold.

In today’s world where “Brightline trains abound and traffic roars louder with every new commissioner-approved development,” the Sailfish Lodge reminds us of a quieter time, a joyous time, when Martin County’s woods and rivers were unspoiled and everything else seemed so very far away…

Sailfish Lodge looked out over Palm City Bay and the Palm City Bridge, 1951. (Thurlow Ricou Collection)

~Thank you to friend, Brian Sullivan, who shared the historic Sailfish Lodge publicity pamphlet inspiring this post.