Location Monroe County, Florida Built 1929 Opened 1929 | Nearest city Key West, Florida NRHP Reference # 82002377 Added to NRHP 13 May 1982 | |
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Address Sugarloaf, 4 Bat Tower Rd, Upper Sugarloaf Key, FL 33042, United States Similar Sugarloaf Key, Griffis Sculpture Park, Blue Hole, National Key Deer Refuge, Seven Mile Bridge | ||
Sugarloaf key bat tower
The Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower, also known as the Perky Bat Tower, is a historic site in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It is located a mile northwest of U.S. Route 1 on Lower Sugarloaf Key at mile marker 17. On May 13, 1982, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.
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History
The tower was built in 1929 by Richter Clyde Perky, a fish lodge owner, to control the mosquito problem in the Lower Keys. However, when the bats were put in, they supposedly flew away, never to return. The tower was built from plans purchased from a Charles Campbell of Texas, an early pioneer of bat studies. The Hygiostatic Bat Roost, as Campbell called it, was intended to be a roost for bats that would eat the mosquitoes which spread malaria.
Today
Three Campbell bat towers are still standing (out of an original fourteen world-wide) in the United States: the Perky Tower; one in Comfort, Texas; and one at the Shangri-La Gardens in Orange, Texas. At least one of the Texas towers has been internally reconstructed so that bats currently roost in it. The ruins of a fourth Campbell tower, in Temple Terrace, Florida, burned in 1979 and now consists of the concrete base and legs. Temple Terrace is in the process of rebuilding their 1924 tower.