Boca Grande and Hurricanes: 1920’s Storms
At the History Byte program, Doris went on to the hurricanes of 1921 and 1926. She noted that an unnamed member of the audience was living on the island in 1921 but was only 2 months old. By 1921, the island was much more developed with Port Boca Grande, the town Boca Grande and Gasparilla Village. The storm flooded streets, washed out the railroad tracks near the narrows just north of town, damaged the phosphate dock as well as the Gasparilla Inn bathhouse located on the beach at 5th street. It also damaged homes on Cole Island (where Boca Grande North is now).
Doris reported that Mrs. Cole thought that “if they were going to die, they were going to meet their maker in their best go to meeting clothes. So, she got the whole family dressed in their best clothes and they sat out the storm and they didn’t meet their maker, but they were dressed for it.”
During the 1921 hurricane Pansy Cost and her family lived in a building south of where the Barnichol is located today. Her mother “started down the stairs and stepped in the water and so that was when the water did come up and go over the island, but not bad enough that it done a great deal of damage.”
According to historians Lindsey Williams and U.S. Cleveland, the 1926 hurricane – this is the one that drowned 130 people in Moore Haven, and it also produced “the most curious effect of blowing all the water out of upper Charlotte Harbor then blowing it back to flood Punta Gorda and Charlotte Harbor Town.” It also washed away a large portion of the beach at Boca Grande and resulted in the building of seawalls to protect beachfront properties. And it damaged the Inn’s bathhouse for a second time.
Pansy remembers that the water from Charlotte Harbor came over the island from the east to about Tarpon Street. She also remembers the wind and that she “kept going for the window and mother kept yelling at me to get back. She was afraid that the window would break and then I’d be hurt. But anyway, I’d just go there and look out the window to see what was flying by. They were amazing.”