Old maps are a new attraction at museum
If only maps could talk. We would hear about long weather-beaten nights on the Gulf of Mexico, the smell of lumber and salty air, a retirement, a dusty old attic and finally a ride with the Federal Express guy.
The kind soul that sent the maps, dating back to the turn of the century, to their final resting place at the Destin History & Fishing Museum is Jerry Holland, 67, of Gulfport, Miss.
"A friend of mine rented a house from an old lady here in Gulfport, and he found the old maps in the attic," Holland said. "The lady told him she had no use for them and said he could have them."
The tenant had no interest in the maps either, so they landed in the possession of Holland, who kept them for 20 years before deciding that someone else, like a museum, might enjoy having them.
Holland came to Destin as a visitor and like many, he made a stop in the Destin History & Fishing Museum and got the idea to give the maps to them after falling in love with the quaint little museum.
"He said he'd been looking all over the coast for someone he'd feel comfortable giving the maps to and asked if we'd like to have them," Jean Melvin, the museum director, said.
One map reissued in 1916 shows Choctawhatchee Bay as it was in June 1886. The other shows Destin's Old East Pass in 1917 before it was closed and the New East Pass was dug with shovels and boat oars in 1926 by O.T. Melvin and his crew to alleviate rising waters along Holiday Isle where people were settled.
The map's origins are right in sync with Destin's history by the sea.
"The old lady's husband was a mariner that used the maps to chart around the area," Holland, a retired electrician and former charter boat owner, told The Log. "He used those charts when he sailed all over the gulf."
In the early 1900s, Gulfport got its beginnings as a thriving lumber town and working seaport. The original owner of the maps may have been a merchant mariner. His maps, some of them hand drawn, depict what he observed as he traveled around Florida's coastline.
The century old maps received some TLC at Eglin Air Force Base where they were preserved by restoring the moisture back to the brittle old paper.
"When I tried to open them up, they were tearing," Melvin said.
Once the process is complete, the originals will be returned to the museum where they will be safely stored to protect them from damaging light. Exact replicas will soon hang in the Destin History & Fishing Museum at 108 Stahlman Avenue across from the Community Center.