Smiling Sponge Man
by Janette Boyd
Title
Smiling Sponge Man
Artist
Janette Boyd
Medium
Photograph - Photo
Description
Photo of the "Smiling Sponge Man" at the Sponge Store in Mallory Square in Key West, Florida.
Featured in the following FAA Groups:
*All Places on the Atlantic Coast of the USA
*Weekly Fun for All
*Mannequins and Displays
The headquarters of the sponge industry in this country is Key West, a city built on a small coral island seventy miles from the main land, and the most southerly point within the territorial limits of the United States. Here the business of sponging ranks second in importance only to that of cigar making, and provides steady employment the year through, to several thousands of the most able-bodied male inhabitants of the place. The present sponging fleet of Key West numbers three hundred and fifty vessels, of all sizes, from the well appointed 50-ton schooner, with its crew of fourteen men and towing half a dozen boats, down to the tiny sloop that affords scant room for three men and their meagre stock of provisions, but in which they will set out on a month's cruise a hundred miles or more from home with the utmost confidence in their boat and themselves.
The Key West sponger has a choice of two distinct fishing grounds�the "Bay" and the, "Reef." The former includes all the waters of the Gulf of Mexico washing the western coast of Florida, but more particularly, those lying in the vicinity of St. Marks, between Cedar Keys and Apalachicola. From this locality, near a headland known to spongers as Rock Island, come the bulk of the fine sheep's-wool, or ordinary bath-sponges. Further south, near the mouth of Tampa Bay, grow the large and highly prized Anclote grass-sponges, which are destined to undergo a curious transformation of name and character before reaching their ultimate market.
Uploaded
May 30th, 2014
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Viewed 172 Times - Last Visitor from Toronto, ON - Canada on 04/10/2024 at 5:46 PM
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