Flamingo, Florida

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Flamingo
Unincorporated community
Flamingo Visitor Center
Flamingo
Location within the state of Florida
Coordinates: 25°8′27″N 80°55′27″W / 25.14083°N 80.92417°W / 25.14083; -80.92417Coordinates: 25°8′27″N 80°55′27″W / 25.14083°N 80.92417°W / 25.14083; -80.92417
Country United States
State Florida
County Monroe
Time zone Eastern (EST) (UTC-5)
 • Summer (DST) EDT (UTC-4)

Flamingo is an unincorporated community[1] and ghost town[2] in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It began as a small coastal settlement on the eastern end of Cape Sable on the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, facing Florida Bay. It is now the southernmost headquarters of Everglades National Park, the end of the 99-mile (159-km) Wilderness Waterway known as the Ten Thousand Islands, and the southern end of the only road (running 39.3 miles (63.2 km)[3]) through the park from Florida City.

Early years

After the end of the Seminole Wars, there were scattered settlements on Cape Sable, including at Flamingo. The settlers made a living by providing fish, fresh vegetables and charcoal to Key West.

The settlement received its name in 1893 when the settlers had to choose a name for their new post office. They chose the flamingo as the most distinctive bird seen in the area. While the flamingo did not breed in Florida, birds from Cuba and the Bahamas once traveled in large numbers to the area. Flamingos were last seen in large numbers in the area in 1902. The post office was closed in 1909.

Life in Flamingo could be unpleasant. Leverett White Brownell, a naturalist, visited Flamingo in 1893. He described the village of 38 "shacks" on stilts as infested with fleas and mosquitos. He claimed to have seen an oil lamp extinguished by a cloud of mosquitoes. He also stated that flea powder was the "staff of life" and that the cabins were thickly sooted from the use of smudge pots. He added that tomatoes, asparagus and eggplant were the principal crops.

Flamingo had a small boom in the early 20th Century when speculators thought that Henry Flagler would choose a route for his Florida East Coast Railway across Florida Bay to Key West. Nearby rookeries, such as the famed Cuthbert Rookery, became popular with poachers who sought to kill the nesting birds for their plumage, which was used for fashionable women's hats. Resident and early game warden Guy Bradley was shot and killed in Flamingo after confronting plume hunters.[4]

A fish house was built in Flamingo in 1908 and fishing became the primary occupation of the town. The Ingraham Highway from Homestead reached Flamingo in 1922 but was poorly maintained and virtually impassable in wet weather until the National Park Service gave it a gravel top in the late 1940s. During prohibition moonshining became a major occupation in Flamingo but was eventually suppressed by government agents.

The Snake Bight Trail provides an alternative pedestrian access to the sea to the east of Flamingo but its two-mile length is notorious for the number and ferocity of the mosquitoes. The Christian Point Trail is less daunting and leads through open saltwater marl prairie to Christian Point. The area reportedly got its name when it was used as a mass grave after the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 washed numerous dead bodies from the Keys ashore.

Flamingo today

The residents of Flamingo were relocated shortly after the creation of Everglades National Park. Through the second half of the 20th century Flamingo consisted of the Flamingo Lodge, a restaurant and cafe, a marina, a store, a gift shop, a few houses for park rangers and a campground.

Most of these facilities, however, were severely damaged or destroyed in 2005 by storm surges up to 9 feet during Hurricane Wilma. The marina and store have reopened but are currently limited to daytime activity only. There are three new plans to increase eco-tourism with improvements to Flamingo, two of which include rebuilding the destroyed facilities. All plans include keeping the historic gas station and Mission 66 visitor center facility. Handicap access will also be added and employee housing and backwater chickees will be replaced in all three plans. As of March 29, 2009 the lodge had been razed and plans to rebuild it are on indefinite hold.

Flamingo is one of the interpretive centers of Everglades National Park. Trails such as the Snake Bight Trail, Christian Point Trail, Rowdy Bend Trail and Coastal Prairie Trail allow visitors to experience the buttonwood, mangrove and coastal prairie ecosystems. Eco Pond is man-made and is part of Flamingo's sewage treatment system. As the largest body of fresh water in the saltwater area of the Everglades it attracts birds in abundance. It had been surrounded by invasive, non-native Brazilian pepper bushes before the National Park Service recently removed this alien weed and replaced it with native vegetation.

References

  1. ↑ Flamingo, FL - Community Profile
  2. ↑ Flamingo, FL - Ghost Town
  3. ↑ Google Inc. "Map of Main Park Road, Everglades National Park". Google Maps (Map). Cartography by Google, Inc. https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=Unknown+road&daddr=State+Hwy+9336%2FIngraham+Hwy&hl=en&ll=25.24718,-80.691147&spn=0.440326,0.727158&sll=25.137078,-80.93555&sspn=0.006886,0.011362&geocode=FYiSfwEdGvos-w%3BFROKgwEdtosy-w&mra=mift&mrsp=0&sz=17&t=m&z=11. Retrieved March 24, 2013.
  4. ↑ "Everglades Biographies: Guy Bradley". Everglades Digital Library. Retrieved on July 1, 2010.

Sources

Municipalities and communities of Monroe County, Florida, United States
Cities
Village
CDPs
Unincorporated
communities
Ghost towns
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