such as land developer Walter Fuller, Cecil B. Detre, and John Wanamaker. The thousands of tarpon caught by Roberts and his clients can be found as far away as Alexandria, Egypt, in the home of Sir Harry Rofe. By 1920, Cabbage Key had "a first-class dairy with 36 cows", as well as the first wireless tower in Pinellas County. Although two homes were built on Monte Cristo in 1923, and one in 1946, things were quiet until the mid-1950s when a Dr. Bradley "Doc" Waldron went to Tallahassee and persuaded the State of Florida to sell him Pine Key, Cabbage Key, Pardee Key and the surrounding bay bottom. This was about the same time construction of the old Skyway Bridge began. Waldron formed a partnership with two builders from Detroit, Hyman and Irving Green, who became majority owners of a group of 36 corporations. They named their island investment "Green Land". Waldron-Green Associates applied for a dredge-and-fill permit in 1957. Their intent: to pump some of sand and shells from the bottom of the bay and thus enlarge and raise the ground level of the three keys Doc Waldron had purchased from the State and join them to create one large island intersected with canals between the sections. Meanwhile, others sought county and state permission to dredge and pump the bay bottom and build up Bird Key, today's Bayway Isles and Isla Del Sol. Miami developer Leonard Ratner purchased land which became the site of Eckerd College. Real estate ventures in the area began in 1884 when Hamilton Disston, once the largest landowner in the United States, began and lost his Disston City development, which later was renamed Gulfport in 1910. At first, the only way to get to Tierra Verde was by boat. A ferry ran from Pass-a-Grille to a dock at the end of Madonna Boulevard. Then the state developed its plans for the Bayway and financed it through a $16.8 million bond issue. The Greens persuaded the Department of Transportation to add a Fort De Soto leg and contributed the land on which it was to be built, thus assuring themselves of land access to their proposed Tierra Verde. The state's final road and bridge plans were approved in early 1960, and the developer's dredging permit was granted in December of that year. The dredging would create about of buildable land. Waldron-Green and their various partners and