Growing Sponges

Woman holding disk with sponge (Monroe County Library).jpg

Lady holding a concrete disk used to grow sponge on Sugarloaf Key circa 1910 (Photo courtesy of Monroe County Public Libraries, Florida History Center, Key West, Online Photo Archive).

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The building used to make the concrete disks used for planting sponges off Sugarloaf Key 1912/1914 (Photo courtesy of Monroe County Public Libraries, Florida History Center, Key West, Online Photo Archive).

Around 1910, a British man by the name of Charles Chase decided to start a sponge farm called the Florida Sponge and Fruit Company at Sugarloaf Key. The farm was established on the site of sponge cultivation experiments conducted the previous decade. Chase used the results of those experiments to get his business off the ground.

In order to cultivate sponges, one begins by harvesting sponges in the wild, cutting them into two-inch cubes, and then tying them to cement discs that are dropped into shallow water. Sponges are regenerative and are able to grow back from cuttings within about three years.

Unfortunately, before the Florida Sponge and Fruit Company could bring their first harvest to market, World War I broke out and Great Britain froze the company’s assets. The company was unable to recover, eventually filing for bankruptcy and being sold to a real estate developer. In the years that followed, others came in to harvest the hundreds of thousands of sponges left behind.

Concrete disks produced by the Florida Keys Sponge and Fruit Company in the 1910s at Sugarloaf Key, Florida. A piece of cut sponge would have been attached to wire that was threaded through the hole at the center of the disk (From Florida Maritime Museum Collection - Donated by John Stevely)