PASSAGE KEY – Now a peaceful bird sanctuary, Passage Key was a bombing and aerial gunnery range during World War II, and the military plans to explore it for unexploded munitions within the next year.
The U.S. Army Air Corps at MacDill Field (later called the U.S. Air Force at MacDill Air Force Base), used Passage Key as a target during World War II, leaving behind several items that were discovered in 1998 that interested the Army, said Amanda Parker, public affairs officer with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, declining to disclose what the items are.
Second Place
Community History
2014
The key – visible from the north end of Anna Maria Island in Tampa Bay – was underwater until recently, and its reemergence has made the site accessible to the Army Corps, although the public is still prohibited from landing on the key, which is a National Wildlife Refuge.
The Army Corps will work with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service during the project to avoid injuring or killing birds, Parker said.
If you find munitions on the beach, or anywhere, practice the three “R”s – Recognize, Retreat and Report to 911.
Passage Key is one of about 800 defense sites in Florida under investigation by the Army, which will begin digging on the key and searching its underwater perimeter within a year, she said, adding that public meetings will be scheduled on the project in the future. A meeting last week on the project, scheduled at the Anna Maria Island Community Center, was relocated and closed to the public and the press.
Many names, many uses
In 1757, when Tampa Bay was called Bahia del Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit Bay), the Spanish named Passage Key “Isla de San Francisco y Leon” (Saints Francis and Leo Island). The English renamed it “Burnaby Island” in 1765; it was also known as “Pollux Key.”
In 1783, it was renamed again, to “Cayo del Paseje,” or Passage Key.
In the early 1830s, Capt. William Bunce operated a fishing rancho on the key. In 1836, the U.S. schooner Grampus and the cutters Washington and Jefferson anchored at its small dock.
In the 1850s, a survey estimated the key’s land area at about 100 acres, Parker said.
It was only 60-plus acres by Oct. 10, 1905, when Pres. Theodore Roosevelt, at the urging of the National Audubon Society, established Passage Key National Wildlife Refuge as a sanctuary for seabirds and shorebirds.
At the time, the key had a freshwater lake and the largest population of royal terns and sandwich terns in the state.
In 1910, Capt. Asa Pillsbury and his family, who homesteaded on Passage Key in 1908, reported 102 species of birds on the key. Pillsbury worked for the Audubon Society as the part-time warden of the key until it was destroyed by the hurricane of 1921, before hurricanes were named.
Natural sand flow rebuilt the key in time to be used as a bombing range during World War II in the 1940s.
In 1970, Passage Key was designated a wilderness area, and remains one of the only undeveloped barrier islands in Tampa Bay. More than 50 species of birds roost and nest on the key, now a 4-acre sandbar.
Since 1991, Passage Key has been closed to the public, although photography and fishing are allowed outside the boundaries of the refuge, much of which is underwater. Boaters routinely violate the law, contributing to erosion with boat wakes, boat beachings and hiking.
