As a member of the Matecumbe Historical Trust, I am so proud to see that this will finally come to fruition. With so much incredible history that has flowed through our island chain, a terra firma repository is so very much needed. Spanish Conquistadors, Seminole uprisings, shipwrecks, treasure, pirates, smugglers Zane Grey, Flagler, Truman, Hemingway...the list goes on and on , and on.
Below, is an article from the Florida Keys and Key West website.
"Groundbreaking Staged for New Keys History Museum in Islamorada
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| Irving Eyster, right, next to his wife Jeane, and other dignitaries wield shovels during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Irving R. Eyster Museum of Florida Keys History Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau |
Actual work on the structure, located at the Islander Resort (Mile Marker 82.1) is to begin this week with expected completion in spring 2012. The nearly 7,000 square feet museum exhibition space is to share the building's overall 15,300 square feet featuring a conference center for the resort.
The museum's namesake, archeologist and historian Irving Reade Eyster, is called "Mr. History" in Upper Keys circles, and at nearly 93 years of age, is busy chronicling his personal cache of thousands of artifacts and valuable materials slated to fill the museum.
"I felt like [Henry] Flagler did when he came into Key West. He was not well, he was almost blind, and his hearing had gone," said Eyster.
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| Artist rendering of the Irving R. Eyster Museum of Florida Keys History at the Islander Resort in Islamorada, Fla. |
"But he said it was one of the happiest days of his life, that finally he'd connected Key West with the mainland. And that's the way I feel about this," he said.
Museum exhibits are to include various interactive displays depicting the Florida Keys' early explorers, pirates, settlers, native Indians, Spaniards, shipwreck and lighthouse memorabilia as well as the "Eye of the Storm" theater, an entertainment centerpiece for visitors to view historic documentaries and films. "There's history on every island, and we're trying to save that," said Eyster.
Eyster settled on Lower Matecumbe Key with his wife Jeane nearly 60 years ago, as the eighth family to build there. In historical lectures, articles and books Eyster described the Keys then as being "in a wild state, jungles with birds and lots of critters, and only a few houses, separated by dense woods."
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| Several hundred Keys residents and officials listen to remarks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Irving R. Eyster Museum of Florida Keys History at the Islander Resort in Islamorada. Photo by Andy Newman/Florida Keys News Bureau |
Together with daughter Barbara Edgar, the Eyster's created The Matecumbe Historical Trust, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to the education, history and preservation of the Florida Keys, and a driving force behind developing the Upper Keys museum.
"The museum will geologically go back tens of thousands of years ... and bring us to the current day," said Richard Russell, the Trust's vice president and great great grandson of Upper Matecumbe's founding family, Richard and Mary Ann Russell. The Islamorada District Advisory Committee, a subcommittee of the Monroe County Tourist Development Council (TDC), has committed $375,000 of capital project monies to help fund the museum"
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