a year while they fished the plentiful waters of the area. Catches were dried and salted so that they could be transported back to Cuba to be sold. This proved effective as the ranchos would return home before Lent to sell their catch when fish was in high demand. The waters surrounding Cuba are viable fishing waters, but they were fished heavily. The waters near the Gulf Coast of Florida were particularly appealing to the ranchos because there were not yet any permanent settlements in the area. This means that the water in the area was an untapped resource of fish, all theirs for the taking. This area was made all the more appealing because its environment was conducive to inshore net fishing (the preferred method of the ranchos). Founding and 19th Century Originally called "Hunter's Point", Cortez was settled in the 1880s by families from Carteret County, North Carolina. When a post office was established in 1888, the village needed a new name to avoid confusion with another Hunter's Point in Florida. Although the origins of the name "Cortez" cannot be officially proven, the community may have been named after the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. In its early days, Cortez was a fishing village so rural that it was more often reached by water than by land. The mainstay of Cortez was and still is its success in the commercial fishing industry. The 1890 Bratton/Burton Store The first commercial building in Cortez was built by William C. Bratton in the 1890s. This building helped to connect Cortez with the outside world. The Bratton/Burton Store housed the post office, general store, and steamboat wharf. About a decade after its original construction, construction on rooms began in order to expand it into the Albion Inn. The Albion Inn along with the 1912 school house were some of the only buildings on the waterfront to survive the hurricane of 1921. The Inn eventually closed and was sold to the U.S. Coast Guard. The Bratton/Burton Store served as U.S. Coast Guard Station Cortez from 1974 until 1991 - when it was slated for demolition. Cortez residents came together to save the Bratton/Burton Store portion of the building from demolition. In 2006, it was moved to the grounds of the Florida Maritime Museum. Cortez in the 20th Century 1912 Rural Graded Schoolhouse Prior to 1912, the young children of Cortez were educated in a