#Shell key preserve shuttle movie#

It is these ruins of Fort Dade that you now are allowed to wander.Īt its heyday, Fort Dade had 300 residents, red brick roads, electricity, telephones, a hospital, jail, a movie theater, bowling alley and tennis courts. In 1898, however, as the Spanish-American War threatened, Fort Dade was built on the island and remained active until 1923. Man’s presence was limited to a lighthouse, Seminole Indians imprisoned here during the Third Seminole War and the Union Army occupying it during the Civil War. Other species include royal and sandwich terns, brown pelicans, black skimmers, and American oystercatchers.Įgmont Key was home mostly to birds up to the middle of the 1800s. Some 25,000 bird pairs nested on Egmont Key in 2020 with 20,000 of those being laughing gulls. Much of the bayside waterfront and the southern half of the island is off-limits as part of the bird habitat of Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge. Pete Beach, and it’s also about 1.6 miles long. The story of Egmont Key and Fort DadeĮgmont Key is about 1.6 miles from Fort De Soto Park at the bottom of St. Seeing the simple historic cemeteries by the picturesque lighthouse, where Civil War veterans are buried on one side and lighthouse keepers and their families on the other.Įgmont Key is an island at the mouth of Tampa Bay, accessible only by boat.Enjoying a picnic at the beach, where we overlooked ruins of Fort Dade’s power plant being engulfed by the Gulf.They’re everywhere and when you meet them on the brick roads, they stand their ground. Encountering so many gopher tortoises.Walking the fort’s beautiful red brick roads, which are now lanes through a jungle.Exploring Fort Dade, which is in a state of romantic ruin.(Photo: David Blasco) Here are a five things I loved about Egmont Key: If you take a ferry, your ticket will be $40 to $70 depending on which your choose, so this isn’t an inexpensive outing.Īt Egmont Key State Park, the red brick roads date back to the Spanish American War, when Fort Dade was built on the remote island in the mouth of Tampa Bay. You must arrive by boat and, no, you can’t camp overnight. It has no cars, no drinking water and no bathrooms. If you like visiting crumbling old forts or ghost towns in a jungle, as I do, then Egmont Key makes a splendid adventure.Įgmont Key is preserved as Egmont Key National Wildlife Refuge and is jointly managed with the state, which operates Egmont Key State Park here.īut be prepared, because while plenty of people may be on the island, Egmont Key is remote. What is special, though, is the intriguing history you experience here.

Fort Dade on Egmont Key is on the left, with a view of the waters of Tampa Bay and the Gulf. And while the beach is beautiful, it really isn’t any nicer than the beaches of Anna Maria Island to the south or Pass-a-Grille to the north, and it is far from deserted. It’s a popular destination for people arriving both by ferry and private boat, so it isn’t empty.

We loved our day on Egmont Key, but it wasn’t what we expected. I had always imagined Egmont Key, an island in the mouth of Tampa Bay, to be a place far from the crowds: remote, wild and natural, and it has always intrigued me.