Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, February 10, 1991 TAG: 9102110374
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: George & Rosalie Leposky
DATELINE: MARATHON, FLA. LENGTH: Long
An artist who goes by the single name Wyland painted this huge acrylic mural, 110 feet long and 28 feet high, to draw attention to the Museum of Natural History of the Florida Keys across the highway. In reality, he created something of a distraction, but if you have trouble finding the museum entrance, the mural at least indicates that you're close.
Wyland, 34, a Hawaiian muralist, also painted an exterior wall of the main museum building facing an adjacent children's museum. Another sperm whale, a giant green sea turtle and several sting rays adorn this mural, which is 55 feet long and 11 feet high.
Wyland donated his time to the Marathon murals in the fall of 1990 "to raise public awareness about the oceans and the live Florida reef," he said. He plans to paint a total of 100 "Whaling Walls" depicting marine creatures around the world. Two others are in the southeast: a manatee at Orlando International Airport and killer whales Baby Shamu and his mother, Kandu, in the Stouffer Orlando Resort at Sea World.
The Marathon murals symbolize the efforts of Florida Keys residents to focus attention on the natural and cultural history of their 200-mile-long archipelago, which sweeps south and west from the tip of the Florida peninsula.
"These are the only West Indies islands you can drive to," notes Chuck Olson, executive director of the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust, which operates the Marathon museums, "and we are the only institution that offers an overview of the entire Keys."
The museum displays artifacts unearthed at archaeological digs and offshore dive sites throughout the Keys, and items from the private collections of many Keys residents. Highlights of its exhibits include:
A 1550 bronze cannon found off American Shoals in the lower keys. Olson says it may be the oldest cannon found in American waters.
A Bellarmine jug made in the late 1500s and found in 1982, standing upright and buried in sand in the Bahia Honda Channel. One of the few such jugs on display anywhere, it bears a carved face of Cardinal Roberto Bellarmino and the belly seal of the city of Amsterdam.
A hands-on display in which you can control the depth of the sea surrounding the keys, to demonstrate how variations in water level over geologic history affected the Keys' geography.
Touchable sample blocks of tropical hardwoods, including red and black ironwood, Jamaica dogwood and lignum vitae.
Vintage photos of the Overseas Railroad's 1904 construction headquarters in Marathon and the wreckage of a rescue train washed off the tracks when the Labor Day hurricane of 1935 destroyed the railroad.
A 600-square-foot walk-through coral reef cave. If you don't dive, you'll especially appreciate this chance to study reef fish and their habitat close at hand. The exhibit includes a 35-foot-tall tower where fish, corals, sea fans, sponges and sargassum weed are arranged as you would see them while looking up from a floor of a real undersea cave toward the water's surface. Species in the display include amberjack, angelfish, barracuda, blue marlin, bull shark, dolphin, eagle ray, flying fish, green moray eel, green turtle, grouper, grunt, parrotfish and several kinds of snapper.
Dioramas of the Caribbean pine forest on Big Pine Key where the key deer live, complete with a day-and-a-half-old fawn, burrowing owl and other creatures native to that habitat; and of the mangrove-fringed islands of the Florida Bay back country, with great white herons, white-crowned pigeons and other back-country species. (Olson emphasizes that taxidermists "rescued" all of the dead animals in these dioramas; none was killed for display).
The children's museum occupies a restored duplex house of Dade County pine built in 1910 for construction workers building the Overseas Railroad. It opened in January and will be dedicated on Earth Day (April 22).
The centerpiece of the children's museum is a 200-gallon saltwater aquarium full of colorful fish. The museum also has a "don't touch" display of dangerous fauna and flora - including scorpions, rattlesnakes, fire coral, Portuguese man-o'-war and manchineel and poisonwood trees - which children may encounter in the Florida Keys.
A 20,000-gallon outdoor saltwater lagoon and tidal basin in the courtyard between the two buildings contains sharks, rays, fish, sponges, seagrass and coral. The courtyard also has stainless-steel touch tanks where children can handle hermit crabs, starfish and other sea creatures; an Indian shell mound; and a 25-foot dugout canoe used in St. Lucia for hand-line fishing.
The museums occupy an edge of 63.5 acre Crane Point Hammock, the largest undeveloped tract remaining on Key Vaca, Marathon's main island. Totally surrounded by modern dwellings and commerce, Crane Point Hammock is a time warp bearing evidence of Calusa and Tequesta Indian artifacts predating Columbus, a Bahamian house left over from an early 20th Century village (the oldest house in the Keys outside of Key West), an a mid-20th Century home influenced if not designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The property also shelters 10 endangered plant and animal species, including the blond Key Vaca raccoon, one of the world's last remaining palm hammocks (a type of tropical rain forest), and at least 160 species of native plants.
Crane Point Hammock is named for Francis and Mary Crane of Needham, Maine, who brought the property in 1950. On a point of land overlooking Florida Bay, they built their Wright-like home with an atrium in which they planted a lignum vitae tree. That tree has grown taller than the two-story house because of its protected location; in the woods, most lignum vitae trees are less than 10 feet tall.
Near the Cranes' home, botanist David Fairchild planted at least 50 species of rare, cold-sensitive exotic plants which he feared would not survive if a hard freeze struck Fairchild Gardens in Miami.
After the Cranes died in the 1970s, their property passed into the hands of developers who wanted to build shopping centers and condominiums on it but had problems getting permits. In 1988, the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust bought the tract for $1.4 million.
Behind the museum, a quarter-mile-long nature walk leads through the heart of the hardwood hammock. It's a fascinating walk - if you wear mosquito repellent and watch out for poisonwood, a tree-sized relative of poison ivy. When the woods are wet, water dripping from poisonwood leaves and branches can give you a nasty rash even if you never touch the trees.
In the future, the nature walk will be extended to 1.5 miles, from the museum to the Bahamian house, where the living-history demonstrations of cooking, sponge-drying and making and mending nets will take place.
The Cranes' home now houses the Trust's research offices and is not open to the public, but you can walk or drive down the gravel road to the point and enjoy the view across the water from the seawall there.
If you go
The Museum of Natural History of the Florida Keys is at Mile Marker 50 in Marathon, on the Florida Bay side of the Overseas Highway (U.S. 1). Look for the entrance to the museum parking lot at the Sombrero Beach Road traffic light.
The museum, and its adjoining children's museum, are open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and from noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Adult admission is $3.50, seniors is $2, students is $1 and children 12 and under are free. For information, contact the Florida Keys Land & Sea Trust, P.O. Box 536, Marathon, Fla. 33050. The phone number is (305) 743-9100.
For information on where to stay or dine in Marathon, contact the Greater Marathon Chamber of Commerce, 3350 Overseas Highway, Marathon, Fla. 33050. The phone number is 1-(800) 842-9580 or (305) 743-5417.
by CNB