Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower

Bat Tower-Sugarloaf Key
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Historic bat tower on Lower Sugarloaf Key, Florida
Location:	Monroe County, Florida
Nearest city:	Key West, Florida
Coordinates:	24°39′0″N 81°34′10″W
Built:	1929
NRHP Reference#:	82002377
Added to NRHP:	May 13, 1982

The Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower is an historic site in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It is located a mile northwest of U.S. 1 on Lower Sugarloaf Key at mile marker 17. On May 13, 1982, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

History

The tower was built in 1929 by Richter Clyde Perky, a fish lodge owner, to control the mosquito problem in the Lower Keys. However, when the bats were put in, they supposedly flew away, never to return. The tower was built from plans purchased from a Charles Campbell of Texas, an early pioneer of bat studies. The Hygiostatic Bat Roost, as Campbell called it, was intended to be a roost for bats that would eat the mosquitoes which spread malaria.

Today

There are three Campbell bat towers still standing (out of an original fourteen world-wide) in the United States: the Perky Tower; one in Comfort, Texas; and one at the Shangri-La Gardens in Orange, Texas. At least one of the Texas towers has been internally reconstructed so that bats currently roost in it. The ruins of a fourth Campbell tower, in Temple Terrace, Florida, burned in 1979 and now consists of the concrete base/legs. Temple Terrace is in the process of rebuilding their 1924 tower.

Cultural references

Parade float during Fantasy Fest, depicting the historic bat tower complete with bats and mosquitoes flying around it, October 2008

• The Bat Tower is used as a setting in the Tim Dorsey novel Torpedo Juice.

References and external links

• Monroe County listings at National Register of Historic Places
• Florida's Office of Cultural and Historical Programs
  • Monroe County listings