Just before you cross the bridge to Anna Maria Island, there’s a small marker tucked beside the Star Fish Company in Cortez. Erected in 1983, it tells the story of a village built on saltwater grit and generations of hard-earned tradition. This marker isn’t just a plaque. It’s a portal into one of Florida’s oldest working fishing communities.
According to the sign, Cortez was once known as Hunter’s Point, a name still found on U.S. Coast Survey maps from 1874. Back then, the land was thick with saw palmetto, barely passable by foot. But the waters were rich. Locals called the eastern shore of Sarasota Bay “The Kitchen” because it fed them through hard times, full of mullet, scallops, and just about everything else the tide could bring in.
In April 1883, a man named Allen Gardner purchased 110 acres of land here for a little over $139. Four years later, that land was subdivided, and by 1888, a post office had opened under the name Cortez with Charles D. Jones as postmaster. Mail arrived three times a week by boat from Braidentown…