You can take the Bats out of New Jersey...

Not only did us Stockton University students head down to the Keys from New Jersey... but so did approximately 1,000 bats... just the bats arrived (then left) over 80 years ago. And we don't want to leave.

Source: Memes

The bat tower then.
Source: The History of Sugarloaf Key.

The Perky Bat Tower in Sugarloaf Key kind of just looks like a standing pile of wood that nobody can be bothered with. But the history behind it is rather profound, enough to declare it a Florida landmark. Richter Clyde Perky was a wealthy innovator and real estate investor from Denver, Colorado that owned the most amount of land in all of the Florida Keys. He had his own town (shockingly named Perky) that he bought and attempted to thrive in with sponge farming. After that idea failed, Perky was an attempted fishing retreat for wealthy people (almost like Islamorada today) that had resident guests – giant, disgusting, starving mosquitoes. After doing some research, Perky took an idea from Charles A. R. Campbell to control the mosquito population with bats. Bats needed somewhere local to call home, so with $10,000 and a dream, in 1929 a bat tower was built. Campbell had much success with his 7 towers in Texas, so Perky thought it was a win situation.

Source: Keizer Nursery

But how do we GET bats in there? Well, you either try to invite them, or you force them to live there. There are conflicting versions to the story of what Perky actually did, and ‘til the day he died, he never once admitted what the truth was. Story #1 is that he tried to bait the tower to attract wandering bats into roosting there. The bait was female-scented guano (white bat poop) that Perky purchased for a LOT of money. It also smelled terrible, especially in the heat and humidity (yum). After a year of no bats, he gave up. Story #2 is that he brought 1,000 bats in from New Jersey, placed them into the tower, and they flew away the following morning.

Can we stop for a second and acknowledge that this guy built a tower, in 1929, for $10,000 and paid $500 for BAT POOP?!

 

Anyway, a few months later, the stock market crashed, The Great Depression began, and tourism dropped substantially. Perky eventually went out of business, and he died in 1940. The ghost town of Perky was destroyed from the severe weather and hurricanes passing through the Keys, but the bat tower still stands. The bat tower is now home to bees inside (which are currently impacted greatly by human development) and an osprey nest on top of it.

The bat tower now, osprey included.
Source: Cyber Mad Hatter Twitter

So what did we learn?

1. You can take the bats out of New Jersey, but you can’t take the New Jersey out of bats.
2. Just because you paid a lot of money for bat poop and don’t want to smell it does not mean the bats want to smell it either.
3. Texans display excellent craftsmanship.
4. This guy loved to blow money.
5. Ospreys are fans of renovation projects.

The Perky Bat Tower remains at mile marker 17 on Overseas Highway. Turn onto Bat Tower Rd.
For more information, please check out the following web sites:

The History of Sugarloaf Key

Richter Clyde Perky's Bat Tower