PINELLAS COUNTY, Fla. — Weedon Island is one of Florida's oldest places, and people continuously inhabit it. Before Machu Pichu, before Europeans arrived in Florida in 1513, and going back to the end of the last ice age, Native Americans called Weedon Island Preserve in Pinellas County home.
The island's rich history dates back more than 12,000 years. During that time, it was home to Indigenous populations, a movie studio, an airport, a safe haven for bootleggers during prohibition, and so much more.
"The natural history can't be beat. This is so Florida," Liz Childress, Education and Outreach Supervisor of Weedon Island Preserve, said. "We've got all kinds of habitats here, particularly our coastal habitat with the mangrove swamps and the Bay waters. There is something for everybody here. You can get some great hiking in. It's wonderful. It's one of the most, I guess, multi-dimensional places that I've ever been to. It's got it all, and it's free."
Read about Weedon Island Preserve here.
According to information posted online, Weedon Island Preserve is an expansive 3,190-acre natural area located on Tampa Bay. This coastal system, comprised of aquatic and upland ecosystems, is home to numerous species of native plants and animals, an educational facility, and a rich cultural history. Indigenous peoples occupied this site for thousands of years. Today, the preserve protects this wide diversity of natural and cultural resources for current and future generations. Weedon Island Preserve is also a well-known birding and fishing site.
The island has alternate spellings, "Weedon" and "Weeden." The story of how the name changed is cited online.
Regional cultures of the Tampa Bay area dominated the prehistory of Florida with two major centers of political, ceremonial, and social significance that developed on the Pinellas Peninsula: the Weeden (alternate spelling) Island and Safety Harbor cultures. Jesse Walter Fewkes, Director of the Bureau of Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution, named the culture he investigated in the 1920s after its location on Weedon Island. Its distinctive and ornate pottery and associated rituals and religious beliefs have generated thousands of articles detailing sites that identify with the Weeden Island Culture. The confusion of the spelling of Weedon-Weeden resulted from the Fewkes Smithsonian publication with its misspelling. In all fairness, numerous articles published about the finds in the local papers also misspelled the island name.
According to history, "Captain W. B. Henderson used his war bonds to buy the property known as Weedon Island. When his daughter Blanche married Leslie Weedon, a doctor from Tampa, Henderson gave the island to them as a wedding gift. Blanche did not care much for the island, but Dr. Leslie Weedon said it would make a good place to get away on weekends, so he accepted the island in 1898."
"When Leslie Weedon sold his island, he eventually had to sell it to a developer, and the developer wanted to make this the Riviera, the South, and he wanted people to come. And he thought, hmm, you know what I can do? I'm going to call the Smithsonian Institution and say I found artifacts here, and they'll come down, and that'll generate a lot of publicity. I can sell this land and develop it," Childress said. "He planted some artifacts, and he brought Dr. Jesse Fuchs here, and Dr. Fewkes looked around and said, those are fake, but those are not, and that's how we got on the map for archeology."
One of the most significant discoveries was a dugout canoe buried in mud for over a thousand years.
"A 40-foot-long saltwater dugout canoe. It took years to get the permits and figure out how to extricate it from the mud and preserve it. So we're proud to have that as one of our exhibits here, so we can tell what happened with it," Childress said.
In March, the island's preferred kayak company, Ecomersion, will take people to some of the outlying islands to discuss the archaeological significance underwater. The tours will take place every Saturday in March.
