Denver and His Treasure

During the early days of the Deltona Corporation and the development of modern Marco Island, the task of turning 24 square miles of mangroves, sandy hammocks, and mosquito nesting ground into a marketable island community was daunting. An ultimate vision was complete on the drawing board, but there were giant obstacles between the hot and tropical saltwater jungle of yesteryear and the comfortable and pristine island paradise of today.

When the dredge work began in the early 1960s and the massive engineering of earth moving truly began, the construction of the canal system on the island must have been like a ship ready to cross an ocean with no land in sight.

When the giant dredges began plowing through mangroves to make hundred-foot-wide canals, the work not only seemed futile but also endless. Immediately after a dredge finished plowing a deep-water swath through the tangle-root mangroves, the ancient oyster bars, and the clay and sediment that make up the coastal substrates undisturbed for centuries, seawall crews began to follow and build the waterfront infrastructure that remains today and holds the hundred miles of Marco Island canals place.

The seawall work was heavy, dangerous, and relentless. Cranes on barrages did the heavy lifting of pre-formed concrete segments, while rough and very tough laborers, ironworkers, and cement finishers were the muscles of the industry. The men working the seawall crews were as hard as the nails they drove into the forms that built Marco Island. Their workplace was brutal but there was never a complaint without a laugh. These were the unflinching men of battered heavy equipment, diesel smoke, and sulfur-tainted dredge water. 

The crews knew little of anything but hard work. The pressure to make progress in the brochures that promised the success of an island paradise often prompted endless overtime. Some of the seawall crews were working dawn-till-dusk seven days a week. There was no resentment in the work. It was honest work and the men were proud to have it.

One of these iron-hard men of the saltwater marsh and the mangroves was Denver. Denver was always at the forefront of his seawall crew and deep in the sludge and spill water of every fresh excavation. He was at the finish of every concrete wall that still holds the waterfront homes of Marco together, and for many of the Marco Beach Boys and Girls, Denver was the ultimate epitome and representative of the Deltona construction worker.

Denver wore tank tops, jeans, and boots with steel toes, and he always wore a faded red bandana tied around his forehead. The lines etched deeply into his face were a reminder and a story of the job sites and places he had been. His beard and the braided pigtails of his hair were blonde turning to gray where the endless seasons of summer, sand, and salt had burnished him into something that was unique but certainly not unlike his other brothers, who also chose to work under a relentless Florida sun and an environment that alligators would avoid. 

When the construction began on the big Hawaii hotel on the beach and the treasure hunters began to arrive and insist there was an old Spanish Galleon buried under the dunes and the sand, Denver and his crew cracked a few Budweiser’s after the mosquitoes drove them from the latest dredge ditch. 

When another story surfaced about a flashy pirate and his two girlfriends who buried their treasure somewhere on the largest of the Ten Thousand Islands, the rough and tumble seawall crews with sunburned skins of leather cracked a few more beers and began to consider where they were, and what they were actually doing.

Denver and the Deltona crews were hard men, but they were shrewd and far from stupid. They knew they were digging up an old island where natives from the time of Christ were living and possibly gathering some kind of wealth. When another sunset tale of buried treasure began to dominate the parked pickups, the Budweiser’s, and the concrete front porch of the 7-11 on Collier Boulevard, Denver and the most senior of the seawall crews decided they were not going to miss anything if it were waiting under the ground and buried on Marco Island.

As the fair winter days began moving into the heat of one particular summer, the Deltona crews worked on, but they were looking. They were looking for anything different in the mire, the heart of mangroves, and the occasional well of rocks where fresh water seeped and rattlesnakes were quick to find another burrow.

All of the crew were living as they did from hand to mouth, from paycheck to paycheck, and they all drove old beater cars and pickups that were a mile away from a junkyard. No one is quite sure when it happened, but one day after endless overtime and massive progress in the canals, Denver and his crew told the boss they needed a week off.

The boss asked no questions from his construction trailer, but when Denver and the boys pulled up for work the following week, the boss, the dredging supervisor and all the ladies that were working in the administration trailers came out to look at all the brand-new Corvettes.

It seemed that every member of Denver’s seawall crew were all now driving spanking-new Corvette Stingrays. The boys also had plenty of folding cash flying around, and there were some trailers in Goodland with creative upgrades. Denver’s convertible Corvette was candy apple red with glass pack mufflers. He rarely went anywhere with the top up, and when his new car was pulled up to the concrete front porch of the Collier Boulevard 7-11, anyone who wanted to look could see there was a cowboy-style Winchester rifle riding between the two red leather bucket seats.

When anyone asked the wry and wiry seawall worker about the loaded rifle, Denver would simply explain. “That’s because it's finders keepers and I aim to keep what’s mine!”

Tom Williams is a Marco Islander and the author of two books: “Lost and Found” and “Surrounded by Thunder - The Story of Darrell Loan and the Rocket Men.” Both books are available on Kindle and Nook.