Living From the Lagoon
The Pioneer Families of Florida’s Working Waterfronts
For generations, Florida’s coastal families organized their lives around water.
Trace Florida’s coastline from the Panhandle’s oyster bars to the mangrove bays of the southwest and the long lagoon down the east coast, and a pattern emerges. For generations, the people who lived there organized their lives around a particular bay, river or lagoon that fed their families, employed their neighbors and connected them to the wider world. No single trade defined these waterfronts. Each stretch of coast produced its own working culture.
A Coastline of Specialists
Cortez, on Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, was settled in the 1880s by commercial fishing families, many from the North Carolina counties of Carteret and Onslow. It was first known as Hunter’s Point, and mail arrived by boat. Net fishing for black mullet was its core, and the catch went by boat to Cedar Key and, after the railroad arrived, to Tampa. The Cortez Historic District was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Cedar Key was a significant Gulf port. David Levy Yulee’s cross-Florida railroad reached the island in 1861, and its mills shipped lumber and cedar slats for pencils. Cedar was already dwindling by the 1890s, and the hurricane of 1896 flooded the town and damaged the mills. Over the following decades Cedar Key became a small fishing village.
At Tarpon Springs, commercial sponging began around 1890, when John K. Cheyney launched the first local sponge-fishing boat. In 1905 John Cocoris, a recent Greek immigrant, introduced sponge diving, and many Greeks moved to the town. Helmeted diving reached deeper beds than hooking could, and the industry made Tarpon Springs famous.
At Steinhatchee, the Chamber of Commerce says sponge fishermen were well established by the 1930s, with residents recalling as many as a hundred sponge boats in the river at once. It says the sponge fishery ended in the late 1950s after a red tide killed the most valued sponges, and the waterfront turned to mullet, trout, crabs and scallops.
More Than One Way to Work the Water
Fishing was never the only trade. Boats needed builders, nets needed constant repair, and fish needed packing, icing and shipping, which built a secondary economy of fish houses, ice plants and dock laborers.
Apalachicola shows the layering. Its commercial fishing and fish-packing trade grew alongside oysters, shrimp and blue crabs in the late 1800s, and sponging was a significant fishery in Franklin County from the mid-1870s into the early 1900s. In the 1880s, William H. Boyington and his son Jesse fished trotlines for blue crabs and traded them for farm products and staples. Then, beginning in 1930, Eastpoint seafood dealer Arthur Tucker built a large-scale crabmeat operation, packing meat in pint jars and shipping it north by rail.
Water as the Only Road
What united these communities was dependence on water as the way to get anywhere. Before reliable roads and bridges, a boat carried people, mail, supplies and goods between isolated settlements. Cortez’s first mail, for example, arrived by boat three times a week.
When the Water Stopped Being Enough
Railroads and ice plants widened markets in the late 1800s and early 1900s, and later roads and bridges reduced the boat’s role. The most decisive blow to older net fishing came in 1994, when Florida voters approved a constitutional amendment, effective July 1, 1995, banning gill nets and other entangling nets in state waters. Mullet are still harvested under the remaining rules. Many waterfront communities have adapted since, though what remains is diminished.
Quick Facts
Cortez
Settled in the 1880s; first Hunter’s Point; National Register district 1995
Cedar Key
Railroad arrived 1861; hurricane of 1896; became a fishing village
Tarpon Springs
Sponging from about 1890; Greek sponge diving introduced 1905
Steinhatchee
Sponge fishing established by the 1930s; ended in the late 1950s per the Chamber of Commerce
Apalachicola
Finfish, oysters, shrimp, sponges and blue crabs
Boyington crab fishing
Trotlines in the 1880s, traded for farm goods
Arthur Tucker
Large-scale crabmeat operation beginning 1930
The common thread
Boats, not roads, connected isolated communities
Net amendment
Approved 1994; effective July 1, 1995
Did You Know?
- Greek sponge diving came to Tarpon Springs in 1905.
- Cortez’s first mail arrived by boat three times a week.
- Apalachicola crabmeat was packed in pint jars and shipped north by rail.
Vocabulary
Trotline: a long fishing line with many baited hooks.
Waterman: a person who earns a living working on and from the water.
Fish house: a waterfront building where fish are cleaned, iced and packed.
Discussion Questions
1. Why did boats matter more than roads to Florida’s coastal communities?
2. Which of these towns changed the most when its main trade declined, and why?
Related Articles
- FLH-0094 — The Mullet Men
- FLH-0096 — The Watermen of Sebastian
- FLH-0090 — Mail by Boat
- FLH-0086 — The Watermen of the Ten Thousand Islands
- FLH-0170 — Steamboats on Florida Rivers
Sources
National Park Service. National Register nomination, Cortez Historic District (1995).
Steinhatchee Chamber of Commerce. Local history of the sponge fishery (single source for Steinhatchee).
Florida Memory. State Library and Archives of Florida. floridamemory.com
Copyright © 2026 Wm. E. McMullen II. All rights reserved. Published by Florida Learning Hub.