Unearthing Port Marco

Port Marco was more than just a trailer park - it was once a clam factory and 1,500 years before that a village, another 1,500 years before an earlier village and still one more village below that, according to a Marco Island archeologist. 

The news, which includes at least as much deep history as it does new information, comes after Port Marco was demolished this April to make way for a five-story mixed-use development. Then, Marco Island Historical Society advocates were concerned that an archaeological survey was not done prior to that clearing of the land.

“There has been some improvement now,” said Craig Woodward, an area historian and retired attorney. “They stopped the construction, and the City is reaching out to an archaeologist to assess it,” Woodward said in a phone interview. 

Archaeologist Gene Erjavic has dug up thousands of artifacts on Marco Island over the years, including as a contractor for the City’s sewer project in 2012 and recently to assist with assessing the utilities on the Port Marco property. Port Marco, the former manufactured home park next door to the Snook Inn of Old Marco, is now owned by Tailwind Group, which proposed the five-story, mixed-use development with condominiums, two restaurants, a hotel, and a marina shop on less than two acres during a public neighborhood meeting in March.

“The plans in their application are not consistent with the Comprehensive Plan and Land Development Code. So, there is a lot of work on their part before this application can be seen by the Planning Board,” said Marco Island Community Development Director Dan Smith in an April 7 email. 

Historical and archaeological advocates are concerned that the city may not have enforced the Land Development Code (LDC) when allowing the demolition and clearing of the site. 

Marco Island LDC reads: “The City will advise the Florida Division of Historic Resources of any proposed renovation, expansion, or demolition of any identified historical or archaeological structure or site, developed or undeveloped, included on Comprehensive Plan Map M-13, Historic Places and Archaeological Sites Map, prior to the issuance of any local development order.” Port Marco is highlighted on that map as an archaeological site.

A phase one archaeological permit is required prior to demolishing the site in Old Marco, advised Nancy Richie, a former City environmental specialist and current consultant with her own firm, Island Environmental and Marine Services, LLC.

“Permits were issued for demolition of the trailers,” Smith reported as of April 4.

The city had requested the property owners stop work on April 1, Marco’s chief building official Raul Perez said. By that time, all had been demolished and removed, except for what may still be below the surface. 

“It’s in an archeological sensitive area, so any work involving digging into the ground, excavation requires a phase one archaeological survey,” Perez said.

“The city issued a permit to remove modular homes and everything above the surface, which they’ve done,” he added.

The work the city stopped, he said, was when the developers were wanting to take out the plumbing lines and they were going to start digging out there,” Perez said.

“You can’t dig without the survey, so that was halted,” he said.

Also, the city was contacted when residents were concerned that they saw large amounts of soil removed by trucks from the property, Perez said. 

However, when the City arrived, it was simply brush that seemed to have been removed, Perez said. 

Attempts to reach the developer’s lead project coordinator Stephanie Karol of Bowman company, weren’t immediately successful. However, City officials said the owners and developers are now working with an archaeologist. 

“I think there’s a lot of treasure there from the past that needs to be looked at,” said Ted Naftal, a charter boat captain and husband of Nancy Doxsee, whose clamming family owned the Port Marco property decades earlier.

The Doxsee family expects a lot of interesting artifacts to be discovered on the property, members have said. 

A Model A truck is buried there that was used to extend the land using clam shells, the Doxsees have relayed. 

“There are artesian wells there,” Naftal said. “There’s a lot of pottery there from the Calusa Indians,” he added. “I think that ought to be saved. I don’t think they took much because they just scratched the surface,” Naftal said of the demolition phase thus far. 

“I would like to see them do a dig there,” he added. 

Naftal was hired by Port Marco years ago to help convert their horseshoe-shaped driveway from shells to pavement and in the process, discovered an artifact.

“I was using a box blade on a tractor, and it threw me off the tractor. It stalled the tractor,” he recalled. 

Naftal had discovered a pot four to five feet tall and just as wide used in the clam factory, he said. It’s now in the Marco Island Historical Museum along with many items found throughout that Old Marco area, including the world-renowned Key Marco Cat, a six-inch feline-human figure carved from hardwood 500 to 1,500 years ago by early Calusa people or their Muspa ancestors. It was among the artifacts discovered on Key Marco in 1896 during a Smithsonian-sponsored expedition led by archaeologist and anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing, producing what many people describe as some of the greatest discoveries in the history of North American archaeology.

The original area called Key Marco is now known as Old Marco, Woodward has said.

One of the most significant archaeological sites not only on Marco Island, but in the state of Florida and across the U.S. is in Old Marco, he added. 

“There are absolutely plenty of artifacts still there,” said Erjavic.

“There’s an entire village below the surface,” he said. “It was covered by hurricane surge,” Erjavic added. 

There are three villages approximately 1,500 years apart from each other buried one below the other, with the most recent 100 years recently demolished, he said. 

“It’s all just below the surface,” Erjavic said. 

There are city, county, state, and federal rules to go by for the archaeological site, he said. 

“At one point, we dug very deep in North Marco,” Erjavic said. 

“It only makes sense that it was well established back then because it was their paradise, and it continues to be a paradise,” Erjavic said.

“This is the ideal moment in time to capture that image of the history and archaeology before the development and before it’s all forgotten,” Erjavic said. 

The most important thing, he said, is to recognize and respect any burials, no matter how far back in time. If human remains are found and determined to be tribal, as they were on Indian Hill, then the nearest tribe, the Seminole Tribe, would determine what they want to do with them, said Richie. 

She was concerned that it would be nearly impossible to remove trees, driveways, and other plants along with the trailers without disturbing below the surface. 

“We’ll be out there a couple weeks. I don’t expect to find a Marco dog or a village of dead people. But I am curious to see what we find,” Erjavic said.