EAST MANATEE — Tony Espelage emerged from his kayak Saturday morning at Jiggs Landing, proudly displaying the Braden River Historical Society commemorative coin he had discovered on his first ever geocaching mission.
Then the geocaching bug started to sink in.
“I never used a GPS like that before,” said Espelage, as he described his adventure on the Braden River. “I saw a two-by-four nailed in the bank that looked like it might be the cache. As I paddled near the two-by-four, my GPS confirmed it.”
Geocaching was part of Super Saturday at Jiggs Landing, an event sponsored by the Braden River Historical Society to help raise money to restore the Nocatee Cabin, the last remaining cabin from the former fish camp that once inhabited the site.
“That’s the only history left here,” said Denise Kleiner, founder of the Braden River Historical Society as she talked about Jiggs Landing. “It’s really in bad shape.”
Jiggs Metcalf and his wife, Agnes, bought the property in the 1930s, and it became known as Jiggs Landing, according to Kleiner. The cabins were originally homes for workers of the Manatee Crate Co., according to the Braden River Historical Society. When the company went out of business in the 1940s, six of the cabins were relocated to Jiggs Landing in 1943 to be rented to fishermen as part of the fish camp located at the site.
Before Jiggs Landing, the property was part of the Marineland development started by Lincoln Marine during the 1920s, according to Kleiner. It was the first development of its kind outside of the city of Bradenton.
“Back then, this was a long haul for people,” said Kleiner. “The city was the big spot. No one came out here.”
A developer bought the property in 2004, but a development never materialized, and Manatee County eventually was able to purchase the land, according to Kleiner. Now the county plans to turn it into Jiggs Landing County Park with new cabins, picnic shelters, a concession stand and a new boat ramp.
The county also plans to help restore the only remaining cabin from the original fish camp and make it into a museum, something that pleases Bill Halstead, vice president of the Braden River Historical Society.
“It’s neat to preserve this kind of historic building,” he said. “With the way our society is growing, there are fewer places people can go and see our county the way it once was. We’re losing this kind of land. Florida is a great state, and we need to preserve as much as we can.”
Kleiner started the Braden River Historical Society after moving to the area and wanting to “save the history and protect the environmental concerns of the river.”
“I was upset because when I went out in my canoe, I saw trash,” she said.
Since the organization began in May 2007, and incorporated, they have conducted four river cleanups. One netted more than 1,800 pounds of trash.
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