Sugarloaf Key bat tower
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The Sugarloaf Key Bat Tower is a historic site in Monroe County, Florida, United States. It is located a mile northwest of U.S. 1 on Lower Sugarloaf Key at mile marker 17. On May 13, 1982, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
Built in 1929 by Richter Clyde Perky, a fish lodge owner, to control the mosquito problem in the Lower Keys.[1] However, when the bats were put in, they supposedly flew away, never to return. The tower was built from plans purchased from a Dr. Charles Campbell of Texas, an early pioneer of bat studies and Nobel Peace Prize nominee. The Hygiostatic Bat Roost, as Campbell called it, was intended to be a roost for bats that would eat the mosquitoes that caused the dreaded scourge malaria. There are three Campbell bat towers 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/legs. Temple Terrace is in the process of rebuilding their 1924 tower.
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