Cortez, A Living Legacy of Florida’s Fishing Past

Just before you cross the bridge to Anna Maria Island, there’s a small marker tucked beside the Star Fish Company in Cortez. Erected in 1983, it tells the story of a village built on saltwater grit and generations of hard-earned tradition. This marker isn’t just a plaque. It’s a portal into one of Florida’s oldest working fishing communities.

The historical marker at Cortez.

The Albion Inn at Cortez.

A large hammerhead shark caught off Cotez.

Fisherman on the docks of Cortez.

Earl B. Guthrie on the docks of Cortez.

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According to the sign, Cortez was once known as Hunter’s Point, a name still found on U.S. Coast Survey maps from 1874. Back then, the land was thick with saw palmetto, barely passable by foot. But the waters were rich. Locals called the eastern shore of Sarasota Bay “The Kitchen” because it fed them through hard times, full of mullet, scallops, and just about everything else the tide could bring in.

In April 1883, a man named Allen Gardner purchased 110 acres of land here for a little over $139. Four years later, that land was subdivided, and by 1888, a post office had opened under the name Cortez with Charles D. Jones as postmaster. Mail arrived three times a week by boat from Braidentown.

The village began to grow when five fishermen from Carteret County, North Carolina, Charlie Jones, Jim Guthrie, and brothers Billy, Nate, and Sanford Fulford, headed south in search of better waters and a better life. Their success brought a wave of relatives down the same route: train to Tampa, then ship to Sarasota Bay. They built tall clapboard houses by the water’s edge, big enough for large families and cousins fresh off the boat.

By the 1890s, Cortez was thriving. It had its own schoolhouse, stores, and even a 24-room hotel, the Albion Inn, built by a couple from Illinois. In 1895, the first steamship on Sarasota Bay, the Mistletoe, started regular stops in Cortez, delivering passengers and goods, and picking up mullet by the barrel.

Fishing was hard, honest work. Men set out in small skipjacks, catching mullet with cotton nets that had to be dried daily. They built stilt houses off the coast for resting and drying their gear between runs. A good day’s catch brought in a penny a pound, and every net had to be soaked in lime to keep from rotting.

Disaster came with the 1921 hurricane, which wiped out most of the shoreline buildings. But as the marker says, the people of Cortez were nothing if not determined. They rebuilt and kept fishing. Many descendants of those original families still live in Manatee County today. Some still cast nets. Some mend them. But all remain tied to the tide.

So next time you’re near the docks, pause at the marker. It’s more than a piece of metal. It’s a tribute to the families who built a village with their bare hands, their boats, and the bounty of the bay.