Tag: NoPaywall

IN THE SPOTLIGHT: A look at Florida’s consolidating, valuable marina industry

Above, the Little Harbor Marina in Ruskin, just south of Tampa. It was purchased in 2021 and is now advertised as a Suntex Experience. It has operated there since the 1950s. Photo by Garland ...

Whidden’s Marina, 100 years

On a handshake Sam Whidden built his marina and a family, about a hundred years ago this year. So, the Boca Beacon is looking back over this icon of Gasparilla Island, Whidden’s Marina. All...

Childhood on the docks; Jumping off the shrimp boat

Above, playing the bait shrimp with Sammy Jay Steyer. BY NIC MOSTYN Editor’s Note: In 2012, Nicholas Mostyn wrote this essay for the Beacon, which won a Gasparilla Island Kids Classic essay...

Birthday letter to Whidden’s. It’s Americana at its finest

One hundred years of Whidden’s. I’ve been lucky to be a small part of that time BY JAKE POEPL Where do I begin? Whidden’s is a true treasure. It’s where I first stepped on a boat in Boca...

A business incubator that gave this captain a start back in 1981

Whidden’s Marina has given more to our traditions and heritage than we can ever repay. It provided the home port for generations of guides and clients. It’s the center of our local fishing...

Hurricane memory

BY JEFF GAINES III When Hurricane Andrew was moving west towards South Florida, everyone knew it was going to turn north at some point but when? Isabelle Joiner, her extended family and most of...

A love for animals, including Chico the Monkey

Above, has Barbara looking as Chico checks Isabelle’s hair. BY KAREN GRACE Sam Whidden is remembered as a man who when he found an injured animal, especially a bird, he would nurse it and...

Where Time Stands Still: A Century of Family, Fishing & Memories

BY BETSY JOINER Whidden’s Marina is the longest-running family-owned business on Gasparilla Island. Its story began with founder Sam Whidden in the early 1920s, his home and the marina building...

Grandmother and grandson team up to write school mystery

What began as a writing project between a grandmother and her transgender grandson has become a published young adult mystery. “Leo, Detective,” written by award-winning former journalist and...

Where Boca Grande’s past remains, right here in the present

World War I veteran created a legacy on Gasparilla Island Above, the Red Gill Fish House, c 1935 BY KAREN GRACE, BOCA GRANDEHISTORICAL SOCIETY Wini Smart begins her book, “Whidden’s and...