July 31, 1994

CIA Held Secret Training In Webb Wildlife Area

LAST OF TWO PARTS
click here for first part

With construction of the Seaboard Air Line Railway from Sarasota to Naples in 1925-26 -- near the Tucker's Grade settlements -- it became feasible to exploit the pine forests for turpentine and lumber.

Perry McAdow of Punta Gorda, and others, leased convicts to bleed pines for sap. When this practice killed the trees, lumber companies took over the leases to fell timber. Among firms in the Tucker Grade area in 1929-31 were those of the Russ Lumber Co., Keyesville Lumber Co., and Roux Crate Co.

Railroad spurs, or "tramways," from the Seaboard main line meandered through the forests to logging camps and sawmills. When a section had been clear cut, the rails were picked up and relaid to a new area.

Following the lumber men was A.C. Frizzell of Murdock. He had come to what is now Charlotte County in 1918 as a telegraph operator for the Charlotte Harbor & Northern Railroad. He made a fortune salvaging pine stumps, then parlayed this into cattle, lumber and automobile dealerships.

Oldtimers say Frizzell hired blacks to grub out pine stumps with an old automobile converted to a tractor. A wide depression was dug into the ground, lined with sheet metal, and the stumps piled in. After setting the wood afire, workers covered the smouldering mass with sand taken from the depression.

Workers tended the kiln for three days and nights. A pipe in the depression carried off pine tar sweated from the stumps to an old bathtub. As the tub filled, the thick pine tar was ladled into barrels. These were shipped to the Hercules Powder Company at Jacksonville. There the tar was incorporated into 117 products ranging from gunpowder to flavoring for lime sherbet. (For details, see chapters 89 and 90 of Our Fascinating Past.)

Also well known to settlers along Tucker's Grade was Cecil M. Webb, a prominent miller at Tampa who maintained a hunting lodge at Willow Pens. He is remembered by Byron Rhode, a Punta Gorda historian now residing in retirement at Jacksonville, and formerly a store manager and director for Winn Dixie.

"I knew Cecil Webb very well. I used to buy meal, grits, beans etcetera from him. He drove a truck for the Eelbeck Milling Co. He saved his money, borrowed some more, bought a couple of trucks and went into business for himself.

"He called his company the Dixie Lily Co. He became very successful -- and rich. I was told that as a young man he walked away from his home up in North Carolina wearing a pair of overalls -- just like A.C. Frizzel did from Alabama.

"Webb was involved in politics. At one time he was chairman of the State Road Department and also the Fish and Game Commission. He used to maintain a hunting preserve in what is now the wildlife management area bearing his name.

"He would bring out politicians and the bosses of the big grocery chains to hunt. His place was stocked with quail, turkeys, ducks, pheasants etcetera. He wined and dined them and had guides to take them out to hunt.

"Webb died a fairly young man. His son and widow sold out to a large milling company -- the Martha White Brand."

Congress adopted the Pittman-Robertson act in 1937 which provided federal funds for creation of wildlife preserves open to hunting on a managed basis. To be eligible, state legislatures had to pass enabling laws guaranteeing that state monies from the sale of hunting licenses would not be diverted.

Such legislation passed both houses of the Legislature in 1939 but the governor vetoed it. Spessard Holland became Governor in 194l, elected in part by his promise to create a large wildlife preserve.

Gov. Holland paid a surprise visit to the Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission in July 1941 to urge support for the wildlife reserve bill. Minutes of that meeting reveal that the governor stated he was not interested in any particular tract. However, Holland was strongly in favor of land acquisition. "The cattle industry is increasing so rapidly that the time is not far distant when there will be no open territory where the man in ordinary circumstances will feel free to hunt," he said.

Leo Wotitzky, of Punta Gorda, was elected state representative at this time. He and the late Attorney Earl Farr went to Tallahassee to lobby for a preserve in Charlotte County. "I was particularly interested in the Bairdsville - Willow Pens-Tucker's Woods area because I and Tucker's son Paul used to go on field trips there with the Boy Scouts."

The Game Commission investigated several large parcels and decided on Charlotte County because the price was low and a large area was available.

The first purchase was for 19,130 acres in 1941 from Babcock Florida Corp. at $3 per acres -- then the market price for raw land from which commercial-quality timber had been removed. Another purchase of 9,621 from Babcock was completed in late 1942. Subsequently other lands were bought from various individuals to bring the acreage up to 63,335 acres. All were dedicated to Cecil M. Webb, chairman of the Game Commission.

The area had a colorful history prior to being set aside as a game preserve. It has been the location of even more exotic events since then, according to Larry Campbell, manager and biologist for the reserve:

"During World War II, 16,000 acres of the management area were set aside as a bombing and strafing range by the Air Force, then a part of the U.S.A. Army. Airfields for training pilots were located near Punta Gorda in Charlotte County and Buckingham in Lee County. The target was a 4x8 panel of plywood on posts.

"Bomb craters, parts of 500-pound bombs and shell casings from 50-caliber machine guns are still in evidence.

"Just a couple of years ago -- during a long, dry spell we found the tail of an airplane sticking up in a pond. We pulled it out and discovered it was a World War II P-47 trainer from Charlotte County Air Base. There was no trace of a pilot, so apparently he got out all right.

"The Charlotte County Air Port is now a first-class, civilian airfield. Buckingham Air Field was dismantled after the war and the concrete landing strip broken up. The pieces were given to us to make rip-rap dams.

"The wildlife area was officially closed in 1943 and designated as the Charlotte County Refuge. Eight years later, game animals had increased in number sufficiently to allow the area to be classified as a wildlife management area, and hunting was permitted for the first time.

"The Game Commission in 1957 entered into a 25-year contract with the Hercules Powder Co. for removal of pine stumps from Webb. Most of the wood was removed by 1976, and the lease has now expired.

"My predecessor, Scott Krug, was involved in a strange adventure involving Webb that can only be wondered about.

"One day in late 1960, some well-dressed men in two long, black cars drove up to the manager's office and showed Central Intelligence Agency badges. The asked Scott to meet them the next day at the Charlotte County Air Port. Of, course he agreed.

"At the airport, the CIA agents took Scott aboard a big transport plane waiting on the runway. They explained they wished to talk without the possibility of being "bugged."

"While airborne, and flying around in a big circle, the CIA asked permission to send a group of "rangers" from a secret camp in Lee County onto the management area at night. The mission was to practice explosion techniques on old stumps.

"For many nights thereafter, the mysterious rangers blew up all the stumps in the reserve. When these were uprooted, the rangers blew up the old tramway bridges that we used to get around on.

"To this day we don't know for sure who the night raiders were or what they were up to. However, it is interesting to note that the last explosions occurred about April 15, 1961 --and the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion by Cuban exiles took place two days later.

"The Webb hunting dog field-trial grounds were set up in conjunction with various kennel clubs. The clubs donated materials and supplies to build the clubhouse, stables, kennels and picnic area. Since 1969, the grounds have been open for limited quail hunting.

"Boy Scouts of America has been granted 1,280 acres in the northeast corner of the field-trial grounds for a camp. The Scouts have invested $400,000 in camp facilities.

"Since Commission purchase, cattle grazing leases have been let in the area on a continuous grazing basis -- one cow per 10 acres. At first, lessees were required to convert ten acres per square-mile section of land into strips of Bahia pasture grass. This has been replaced with a 3-pasture rotational grazing system.

"In 1971, the Game Commission entered into an agreement with the Florida Department of Transportation (DOT) for fill dirt for the embankment of Interstate I-75. Approximately 3.5 million cubic yards of material were excavated to create a 395-acre fishing lake. DOT also built an asphalt access road to the lake along the shoreline and landscaped it with native cypress, oak and cabbage palms.

"Another lease was granted the City of Punta Gorda for construction of a waste-water spray field on 884 acres of improved pasture in the northwest corner of the Webb area.

"A managed wildlife area provides benefits to people as well as to animals, birds and plants. Our control dams, for example, hold back storm water from flooding North Fort Myers and puts the excess back into the underground aquifer.

"Thus, it is a pleasure to sees the public enjoying a wild area. Folks come from all over the world to catch a glimpse of our red-cockaded wood peckers. National Geographic took photographs of them for a story, and the Wild Kingdom television show came out a couple of times to make a series of pictures."

cutline l

Photos by Lindsey Williams

Tucker's Grade, a one-lane marl-top road, bisects the Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area east-west and is shaded by Florida slash pines spared by lumbermen.

cutline 2

Larry Campbell, manager biologist for the Cecil M. Webb Wildlife Management Area, inspects one of the many bomb craters left by student aviators from the Charlotte County

U.S.A. Army Air Base during World War II.

By Lindsey Williams, columnist for Sun Coast Media Group newspapers