I first heard about Clyde Butcher from my parents and he interested me. Mom and dad have been on two of his Swamp Walks through the Florida Everglades and have one of his black and white photographs hanging on their wall. Clyde Butcher is a renowned American photographer known for his photos of the Florida landscape and his special interest in the flora and fauna of the Everglades. I began to follow Clyde Butcher on Facebook and became fascinated by a post he made on the Ted Smallwood Store in Chokoloskee, Florida. This store was facing threats of closure via ongoing legal battles with neighboring land owner Florida Georgia Grove LLP over the rights to the access road known as Mamie Street. The store is designated a historic site and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Clyde Butcher was supporting this little museum and trying to build public awareness against the closure. The legal battles rage on but I felt a sense of urgency and I had to check this place out.
Just an hour and a half drive from Fort Lauderdale, the island of Chokoloskee is located in Chokoloskee Bay and connected to Everglades City on the mainland by a causeway built in 1955. As part of Collier County, it shares this designation with it's more popular neighbors Naples and Marco Island.
Driving across the causeway leading to Chokoloskee Island, the scenery is mostly dense mangroves and flat scrub and is home to lots of unique Florida wildlife such as the Florida Panther.
(Internet photo - Land of 10,000 Islands)
In 1763, Spain transferred Florida, which was uninhabited, to Great Britain. By the Treaty of 1783, Spain regained control of Florida. In 1819, Florida was purchased from Spain by the United States. Seminoles, white hunters, fishermen from Cuba, the United States Army and various "questionable characters" visited Chokoloskee Island. In 1874, modern civilization took root and families began inhabiting the island. In 1897, Ted Smallwood moved to Chokoloskee Island and became a mail carrier using a sailboat for deliveries. He married that same year and raised a family while hunting alligators, fishing and growing tomatoes. Fluent in three languages and only a third grade education, he also had a photographic memory and was known for his witty sense of humor and ability to tell engaging stories.
(Ted Smallwood)
Wife Mamie House Smallwood was born in 1879 near Spartanburg, South Carolina. When she was two and a half years old she moved to Florida with her parents, D.D. and Ida House. After marrying Ted at eighteen years old, she eventually bore six children. Mamie was known for her sunny disposition and her willingness to help those less fortunate. But there was another side to her as well. Mamie petitioned officials in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C. requesting that a bridge be built from Everglade City to Chokoloskee. Although she didn't live to see the causeway built (she died in 1943), her tireless work helped make the dream a reality. She also worked for Indian rights and started educational programs in the Ten Thousand Islands.
(Mamie Smallwood)
In those early days, fresh water was scarce but so was fuel for cooking and heating. So to solve the fuel issue, a local tree called the Buttonwood was used for burning. The Buttonwood is a relative to the mangrove and also known as the American Sycamore. It was plentiful and was popular along coastal Florida.
(Photo courtesy of internet)
In 1906, Ted Smallwood became postmaster and a general store was built in 1917. Accessible only by water, until the causeway was built connecting the island, the store and trading post served the early pioneers and Seminole Indians. Ted remained postmaster until he retired in 1941. His daughter succeeded him and after Ted died in 1951, his daughters kept the store open until 1982. The Ted Smallwood Store was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and is one of the oldest buildings in Collier County.
Getting to this iconic red building is fairly easy - just follow the signage once you enter Chokoloskee Island. The entrance road called Mamie Street dead ends right to the store. The store sits on a sandy lot right on the shore of Chokoloskee Bay and parking is where you find it on the hard sand. There is an entrance fee of $5.00 per person to enter the store.
Approximately 95% of the stock items and artifacts inside the store remain intact, dust and all. It is an interesting reminder of the bygone days of Florida and of the simple, stark existence of the area. Not to mention the heat and the mosquitoes...intense on both measures!
(Picture of Totch w/ gator over shoulder & "Pit Pan" in tow)
(Totch's "Pit Pan")
Once we left the Ted Smallwood Store, we made our way back to the causeway. A stop at the Oyster House for some cold brew on a very hot and humid day and a light lunch of gator, oysters and homemade clam chowder was a good idea.
The only structural change to the store was in 1924 when it was elevated approximately 6 feet onto pilings to avoid flooding due to hurricanes. These are before and after photos of the store after it was lifted onto pilings.
The scale doesn't show an actual egg, but it gets the idea across.
This was a page from a payment ledger. The translations are written in white.
A giant, empty hornet nest was saved for its eclectic appeal.
With a history as rugged and raw as this, Chokoloskee is bound to have had some interesting, legendary characters. One was Loren G. "Totch" Brown who was born in Chokoloskee in 1920. He quit school after the seventh grade and over years worked odd jobs such as fisherman, crabber, guide, marijuana runner and songwriter. During his times as an alligator hunter, Totch dragged this eight foot gator boat he called "Pit Pan" through the grasslands of the Everglades to the small lakes where the gators spent the dry season. A usual hunting trip took two nights and all of the supplies were carried in the boat. Most gator hunts are at night so a head light was strapped to the hunter's hat and the locals called it "fire hunting". Although the small size of "Pit Pan' made it maneuverable on land, sometimes on water it was too small to handle a dead gator. Totch would tow the gator to shore before he could skin it. Totch retired from gator hunting in 1964 after a slight heart attack while out in "Pit Pan'. He wrote a book called "Totch - A Life In The Everglades".
(Picture of Totch w/ gator over shoulder & "Pit Pan" in tow) (Totch's "Pit Pan")
A picture of Ruby Tigertail depicts a Seminole Indian woman in her finery. No fewer than two hundred strings of good sized beads were worn around the neck covering up to the ears. It was an effort just to move the head.
(Beautiful bikes all in a row)
On the way home we encountered large, brown grasshoppers on the two lane causeway hopping all over the road. I've never seen so many all over a roadway like that. Buzzards and crows were happily gobbling up the feast and it was impossible to avoid hitting the grasshoppers. Once we were back onto Alligator Alley and heading east towards home, traffic came to a stand still. There was a fire deep in the woods along the alley and the smoke up ahead was blanketing the highway causing a fog like haze. Large helicopters were swooping down with huge buckets and scooping up standing water in the grasslands near the road, flying back towards the fire and dumping the water on top of it. Also, large four-wheeled swamp buggies were standing by should they need to assist, which is a VERY Florida Everglades way of rescue, besides using airboats.
Grasshoppers and fires behind us, we made it home safely having learned and seen new things. What a great day! If you enjoyed this post on an interesting view of Florida, why not try some more by clicking on this link: Florida
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