Editing Biscayne National Park (section)

===Settlement and pre-park use===
{{stack|[[File:Cocolobo Cay Club Harding 1.jpg|thumb|U.S. President [[Warren G. Harding]] and fishing party at the Cocolobo Cay Club.]]}}

The first permanent European settlers in the Miami area did not come until the early 19th century. The first settlements around Biscayne Bay were small farms on Elliott Key growing crops like [[key lime]]s and [[pineapple]]s. [[John James Audubon]] visited [[Elliott Key]] in 1832.<ref>Miller, p. 11</ref> Colonel [[Robert E. Lee]] surveyed the area around Biscayne Bay for potential fortification sites in 1849.<ref name=bnmproposal4/> At the end of the [[American Civil War]] in 1865, a number of [[Confederate States of America|Confederates]] passed through the area as they were attempting to escape to [[Cuba]]. Elliott Key was a brief stopping point for [[John C. Breckinridge]] during his flight to Cuba. The former United States vice president, Confederate general and Confederate secretary of war spent two nights in Biscayne Bay on his journey.<ref>Leynes, Cullison, Chapter 2, p. 13</ref> Few people lived in the park area until 1897, when Israel Lafayette Jones, an African-American property manager, bought Porgy Key for [[United States dollar|US$]]300 ({{Inflation|US|300|1897|fmt=eq|r=-2}}). The next year Jones bought the adjoining Old Rhodes Key and moved his family there, clearing land to grow limes and pineapples.{{fact|date=November 2024}}

In 1911, Jones bought {{convert|212|acre|ha|adj=on}} Totten Key, which had been used as a pineapple plantation, for a dollar an acre, selling in 1925 for US$250,000.<ref name=burnspsb1>Shumaker, p. 53</ref> Before Israel Jones' death in 1932<ref name=npsbisc4>{{cite web|title=The Joneses of Porgy Key|url=http://www.nps.gov/bisc/historyculture/the-joneses-of-porgy-key-page-2.htm|page=2|work=Biscayne National Park|publisher=National Park Service|access-date=2012-11-19}}</ref> the Jones plantations were for a while among the largest lime producers on the Florida east coast.<ref>Shumaker, p. 55</ref>

[[Carl G. Fisher]], who was responsible for much of the development of [[Miami Beach, Florida|Miami Beach]], bought [[Adams Key]], once known as Cocolobo Key, in 1916 and built the [[Cocolobo Cay Club]] in 1922. The two-story club building had ten guest rooms, a dining room, and a separate recreation lodge. Patrons included [[Warren G. Harding]], [[Albert Fall]], [[T. Coleman du Pont]], [[Harvey Firestone]], [[Jack Dempsey]], [[Charles F. Kettering]], [[Will Rogers]] and [[Frank Seiberling]].<ref>Miller, pp.19–20</ref><ref name=shumaker57>Shumaker, p. 57</ref> Israel Jones' sons Lancelot and Arthur dropped out of the lime-growing business after competition from Mexican limes made their business less profitable, and after a series of devastating hurricanes in 1938 they became full-time fishing guides at the Cocolobo Club. The club had declined with the [[Wall Street crash of 1929|crash of 1929]] which cost Fisher his fortune, but was revived by [[Garfield Wood]] in 1934.<ref name=Shumaker59>Shumaker, p. 59</ref> Among the Joneses' clients was avid fisherman [[Herbert Hoover]] and his family. The Joneses also provided the club with fish, lobster and crabs. Arthur and Lancelot Jones were the second largest landowners and the only permanent residents of the lower Biscayne Bay keys during the 1960s.<ref name=npsbisc5>{{cite web|title=The Joneses of Porgy Key|url=http://www.nps.gov/bisc/historyculture/the-joneses-of-porgy-key-page-3.htm|work=Biscayne National Park|publisher=National Park Service|page=3|access-date=2012-11-19}}</ref> Wood sold the Cocolobo Cay Club to a group of investors led by Miami banker [[Bebe Rebozo]] in 1954, who renamed it the Coco Lobo Fishing Club. Clients guided by the Joneses through the 1940s and 1950s included then-senators [[John F. Kennedy]], [[Lyndon Johnson]], [[Richard Nixon]], [[Herman Talmadge]], and [[George Smathers]].<ref name=Shumaker61>Shumaker, p. 61</ref>

During the [[Cold War]] the future park area was a training ground for Cuban exiles training for missions in [[Fidel Castro]]'s Cuba. Elliott Key in particular was used by the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] as a training area in the early 1960s in preparation for [[Bay of Pigs Invasion|Bay of Pigs invasion]]. The largest facility was Ledbury Lodge, the only hotel ever built on the key. As late as 1988 a group of Cuban exiles were arrested when they tried to use the key for a mock landing. Farther north, exiled Venezuelan president [[Marcos Pérez Jiménez]] kept a house on Soldier Key until he was extradited in 1963.<ref name=hach1>Hach, pp. 35–36</ref>