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1955 Map of Shired Island

Name: 1955 Topographic Map of Shired Island
Creator: U.S. Geological Survey
Published: 1956
License: https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/

USGS Topo · Published 1956

About this map

Shired Island and the neighboring Big Pine Island anchor this coastal survey of the Florida Gulf Coast, where the land dissolves into a complex network of salt marshes and tidal creeks. The interior is dominated by the vast California Swamp, a low-lying landscape defined by a dense web of wetlands and small isolated bodies of water like California Lake and Thompson Lake.

Evidence of former industrial activity is preserved in the form of an Old Railroad Grade cutting through the swamp, suggesting a period of logging or resource extraction before the mid-1950s. The shoreline along Horseshoe Cove is remarkably irregular, etched by numerous named drainages including Fishbone Creek, Shired Creek, and Amason Creek, which illustrate the delicate transition between the Gulf of Mexico and the mainland.