Keyword: Treehouses.
I routinely search the archives of the Manatee County Public Library for island-related historical photographs to share with readers.
I use keywords and categories and usually come up with something interesting, or at least relevant, for the “looking back” feature in The Islander.
Sometimes I come up with a “wow!” or a “what?” find.
This past week, for example, I was curious whether any archival photographs of “treehouses” on the island exist in the library’s history bank.
There are none, but there is a neat image of a treehouse built in 1924 in a large live oak in the 1600 block of Third Avenue East in Bradenton. The structure featured winding stairs and a porch and contained two couches, a gas stove, running water and electric lights.
Often one search will lead to another and I looked next for “live oak” and quickly came across a transcript of an August 1984 interview with Anna Maria Cobb Riles, a member of one of the early white families to settle on Anna Maria Island.
The interviewer asked about the island landscape in the early part of the 20th century. “What did the pristine state look like? Were there a lot of pine trees?”
“No,” Riles replied. “There were not very many pine trees on Anna Maria Island. There were some at the north end and they were cut down and taken away. …
“But there were other trees, oak groves, with these oak groves just about every mile, lonesome mile, all up and down the island. And they were beautiful things. They were slaughtered. The most you see of an oak grove now is where the school is.”
There are fewer oaks at Anna Maria Elementary since Riles spoke about the trees in 1984, and there are far fewer live oak, laurels and myrtles across the island than I saw on my arrival just 16 years ago.
About 26 types of oaks — red and white — grow in Florida, providing shelter and food for wildlife, shade and decoration for humans.
Globally, there are about 430 species of oak, including 217 species at risk, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s most comprehensive inventory of the global conservation status of biological species.
The list includes 112 species classified as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable; 105 species classified as near threatened; and 31 estimated to be threatened with extinction.
The United States has the third-highest number of oak species and the fourth-highest number of threatened species due to changing land use and climate, as well as invasive plants and pests.
Thankfully, the oak species found on the island are not on the IUCN Red List.
And yet, if the island’s groves were largely destroyed in the 20th century, do we need a listing to commit to protections in the 21st century?