December 9 - The Shark Processing Industry Comes to Big Pine Key

Joe Whalton recalls that a visit to the shark camp on Big Pine Key was a favorite activity during his boyhood stays at a nearby family vacation retreat. "The place was close enough that we could see it and smell it. There were times it was really ripe. A whole bunch of us would pull our schull a boat up to watch them skin the sharks. Sometimes, we got in the way, but the workers most of them blacks were real nice. They would never holler at us and they got a kick out of watching us dig out the shark eyeballs."

The Big Pine Key shark facility was built in 1923 by Hydenoil Products to catch and process sharks for various commercials uses. The company's name was derived from the two principal products - hides for sharkskin leather and oil from the liver fork medicine. The campus located on the eastern shore of big pine key about two miles north of the railroad bridge when it opens, and it employed about 25 men and operated six shark fishing boats. In addition to a 400 foot pier extending into the deeper water of the Bogie Channel.

There was a marine railway for hauling the carcasses to shore. Large kettles for boiling livers under the palmetto roof shed and racks for drying and repairing nets and various office in storage buildings. The sharks were called in huge nets up to 600 feet in length, and 15 feet in depth with a nine inch square mesh. The tops of the nets were buoyed with wood floats, and the bottoms were held down with lead weights. When a shark hit the net, it would continue to charge ahead and thrash about furiously during its struggles, the net cords would slip behind the sharps gills and interfere with its breathing. Most of the sharks will be dead from drowning when the nets were hauled. One exception was the selfish and more lethargic type of sharp which usually had to be clubbed to death taking care to avoid the wildly swinging saw. Some of the monsters weigh close to 1000 pounds and reach nearly 20 feet in length, so getting them aboard a boat, even with the aid of block and tackle was a Herculean task.

The species most often caught were leopard, dusky Hammerhead, nurse, sand sharks. Of these the sawfish was the most valuable because it yielded the largest hides and had the best vitamins in its liver. In the first four months of operation Hydenoil boats took 5000 sharks. Single day catches of 50 sharks were common, and on one occasion the catch approached 200.

In that first year, one of the boats caught an 18 foot lemon shark weighing 901 pounds. By 1930 close to 100, sharks, averaging seven feet in length were being caught every single day. The fisherman found all sorts of unusual objects when they cut the sharks stomach, open among them, a barrel of salt pork and the entire hindquarters of a key deer but the most grizzly find was made by Captain W. E. Young, a shark fishing expert who wrote a book entitled "Shark! Shark!" while in the employ of Hydenoil.

In January 1923, Young caught a 12 foot brown shark of Big Pine Key. Upon slicing open the belly, he found a human arm and hand and a piece of blue serge cloth. From immediate inquiries, he learned that an Arrowmarine Airways sea plane had crashed in the sea about 20 miles from Havana the day before he called the shark. A lifeboat from the railroad car ferry, Henry Flagler had managed to rescue the pilot, the mechanic and four passengers, but four other passengers were not recovered. The piece of cloth identified the sharks victim as one of the missing passengers.

Upon returning to Big Pine Key, the fishermen offloaded the sharks with a big crane at the end of the pier. Several men rapidly cutaway the hides with sharp knives. They loaded the carcass and hides onto a flat car riding on a marine railway, which was then winched to shore to the processing facility. In February 1923, Hydenoil announced that it had developed a new apparatus which greatly reduced skinning time the workers lowered a shark into the device

Joe Whalton recalls that a visit to the shark camp on Big Pine Key was a favorite activity during his boyhood stays at a nearby family vacation retreat. "The place was close enough that we could see it and smell it. There were times it was really ripe. A whole bunch of us would pull our schull a boat up to watch them skin the sharks. Sometimes, we got in the way, but the workers most of them blacks were real nice. They would never holler at us and they got a kick out of watching us dig out the shark eyeballs."

The Big Pine Key shark facility was built in 1923 by Hydenoil Products to catch and process sharks for various commercials uses. The company's name was derived from the two principal products - hides for sharkskin leather and oil from the liver fork medicine. The campus located on the eastern shore of big pine key about two miles north of the railroad bridge when it opens, and it employed about 25 men and operated six shark fishing boats. In addition to a 400 foot pier extending into the deeper water of the Bogie Channel.

There was a marine railway for hauling the carcasses to shore. Large kettles for boiling livers under the palmetto roof shed and racks for drying and repairing nets and various office in storage buildings. The sharks were called in huge nets up to 600 feet in length, and 15 feet in depth with a nine inch square mesh. The tops of the nets were buoyed with wood floats, and the bottoms were held down with lead weights. When a shark hit the net, it would continue to charge ahead and thrash about furiously during its struggles, the net cords would slip behind the sharps gills and interfere with its breathing. Most of the sharks will be dead from drowning when the nets were hauled. One exception was the selfish and more lethargic type of sharp which usually had to be clubbed to death taking care to avoid the wildly swinging saw. Some of the monsters weigh close to 1000 pounds and reach nearly 20 feet in length, so getting them aboard a boat, even with the aid of block and tackle was a Herculean task.

The species most often caught were leopard, dusky Hammerhead, nurse, sand sharks. Of these the sawfish was the most valuable because it yielded the largest hides and had the best vitamins in its liver. In the first four months of operation Hydenoil boats took 5000 sharks. Single day catches of 50 sharks were common, and on one occasion the catch approached 200.

In that first year, one of the boats caught an 18 foot lemon shark weighing 901 pounds. By 1930 close to 100, sharks, averaging seven feet in length were being caught every single day. The fisherman found all sorts of unusual objects when they cut the sharks stomach, open among them, a barrel of salt pork and the entire hindquarters of a key deer but the most grizzly find was made by Captain W. E. Young, a shark fishing expert who wrote a book entitled "Shark! Shark!" while in the employ of Hydenoil.

In January 1923, Young caught a 12 foot brown shark of Big Pine Key. Upon slicing open the belly, he found a human arm and hand and a piece of blue serge cloth. From immediate inquiries, he learned that an Arrowmarine Airways sea plane had crashed in the sea about 20 miles from Havana the day before he called the shark. A lifeboat from the railroad car ferry, Henry Flagler had managed to rescue the pilot, the mechanic and four passengers, but four other passengers were not recovered. The piece of cloth identified the sharks victim as one of the missing passengers.

Upon returning to Big Pine Key, the fishermen offloaded the sharks with a big crane at the end of the pier. Several men rapidly cutaway the hides with sharp knives. They loaded the carcass and hides onto a flat car riding on a marine railway, which was then winched to shore to the processing facility. In February 1923, Hydenoil announced that it had developed a new apparatus which greatly reduced skinning time the workers lowered a shark into the device and cut the hide partially away near the head and clamped it and then literally hoisted the shark out of its skin. Other processing improvements that you're cut the curing time for fresh highs from 30 days to 24 hours. The facility shipped dry hides North via the overseas railroad for attaining and processing into leather. Shark leather is stronger than most leathers, soft and pliable, takes die readily and can be used to make almost any article of leather, including shoes. After the sharks were offloaded, the boat crews took their nets to shore and spread them out on racks for drying and repairing. There was always damage particularly from sawfish that would slash great holes in the net. One man kept busy continuously making repairs.

Shark livers were cut out and reduced to oil in large double boilers under a shed. Approximately 75% of the liver was oil rich in vitamins. It was sold as a medicine. Spongers also use the oil to calm and clarify the water surface on breezy days.

A couple who visited the camp in 1926 observed the operations and commented that the place was kept quite clean, considering the nature of work. They saw a number of men skinning sharks with knives, which would indicate that the marvelous skinning apparatus was no longer in use. Other men cut the white shark meat into large slabs, which were insulted compressed and heavy presses and laid out to dry on long chicken wire fences.

Shark fins found a ready market in the Orient, where they were considered a delicacy. Hardly any of the shark was wasted when boiled, the heads yielded large quantity of glue. Insulin for treating diabetes was obtained from the pancreas. The teeth and jaws were sold as curios and the vertebrae were made into walking canes. Harold Terry a Big Pine Key, remembered seeing shark skeleton spread out over an acre of cleared land to dry, after which they were ground up to make fertilizer.

And it was today December 9, 1930 that the Hydenoil products company on Big Pine Key reported that one of its boats brought in a mackerel shark that was 14 and a half feet in length and 10 feet in circumference with a weight of 1752 pounds. The company had seven boats in service and on December 8th, brought in 111 sharks averaging a little more than 300 pounds each.

And that's what happened today in Key West history.

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Photo courtesy of John Sands.