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The Perky Bat Tower
Sugarloaf Key, Monroe County
RUIN
8STRANGENESS
OUT OF TEN
OUT OF TEN
WHAT IT IS
A 1929 wooden tower built to house bats that would eat the mosquitoes. The bats left immediately. Irma took the tower in 2017.
Richter Perky wanted a fishing resort and had a mosquito problem, so he bought plans for a patented bat roost, built a 30-foot shingled tower, and installed bat guano as bait. The bats flew away and never came back; the resort failed; the tower stood for 88 years as a monument to a confident idea. Hurricane Irma flattened it in 2017. The site and the marker remain, and locals still stop.
HOW IT SCORES
Rarity8/10
Is there anywhere else like it?
Backstory10/10
How did this come to be?
Disrepair10/10
What is holding it together?
Commitment5/10
How far do they take the bit?
NEARBY
BEFORE YOU DRIVE
- ENTRY FEE
- Free
- HOURS
- Daylight
- BEST TIME
- Any time. Bring mosquito repellent, ironically.
- HOW LONG
- 15 minutes
- PARKING
- Dirt pull-off
- PAYMENT
- n/a
- ACCESS
- Uneven ground
COORDINATES
24.6483° N, 81.5764° W
Off US-1 near mile marker 17, by the airstrip on Lower Sugarloaf.
OPEN IN MAPS →DETAILS COMPILED FROM PUBLISHED SOURCES. FEES CHANGE. CALL AHEAD.