COVER STORY
22
FORT PIERCE INLET AT 100
Until now, Fort Pierce’s most famous winter visitor and the
inventor of Crayola Crayons had not gotten himself involved
in the inlet effort. But in 1923, Edwin Binney agreed to become
a director of the inlet district. He began to form his own
vision of what Fort Pierce could become.
It quickly became apparent that enlarging the inlet and
creating port facilities was becoming out of the reach of local
financing efforts — despite boom times in Fort Pierce in the
1920s, when property values skyrocketed until evaporating
following the 1929 stock market crash.
In 1923, $220,000 was raised to extend the jetties and deepen
the inlet to 14 feet. In 1925, another bond issue for $400,000
was approved by voters. Spoil created by the latest dredging
was used to form a causeway across the river, roughly in the
same position as today’s South Bridge.
Successive bond issues reached $600,000 and the wider,
deeper inlet and a new channel reaching the mainland,
including a turning basin, was handed over to the new Fort
Pierce Port Commission in 1929. By now, railroad sidings had
been added to the port area and the city constructed a large
warehouse on the waterfront.
The first commercial cargoes of lumber had been arriving via
sailing schooners since 1925, but the new port officially opened
for business in February 1930 with the arrival of the Baltimore
& Carolina Lines’ 250-ton freighter Betty Weems, and thriceweekly
service to Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
PORT BUSINESS FLOURISHED
Binney had been instrumental in financing the last few
years of port development. Along with using his own personal
fortune, he spared no efforts enlisting government aid. >>
Edwin Binney, Fort Pierce’s most famous winter visitor and the inventor of
Crayola Crayons, became a director of the inlet district in 1923.
Today’s inlet is much
wider and deeper than
the original cut, which
was only 7 feet deep and
intended primarily for
fishing vessels.
JOE SEMKOW