| Sponge market at Bailey's Bluff. The caption for this photo in Images of America: Tarpon Springs is: “In the early 1890s, John Cheyney leased the Bailey's Bluff property from Samuel Baker of Elfers. Wyatt Meyer took over the lease, built the long wharf seen in this picture, and rented kraals to boat owners. Cabbage Kraals and Union Kraals, sites just south of Bailey's Bluff, were also operating at this time. By the early 1900s, sponge fishing, employing thousands of people statewide, had become Florida's single most valuable fishery resource.” |