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My display of early Sarasota photographs at my shop building was interesting enough to bring in Sarasota High School alumni during the reunion season. A three-foot by five-foot photo of Hudson Bayou prompted Bill, former City Engineering Department employee, to inform me of an unusual dredge and fill project.

 During the mid and later 1950s, as he was driving home for lunch, he noticed a big dragline in Hudson Bayou on a barge, scooping out the bottom and dumping it into a waiting dump truck. Bill noticed that the bucket was digging deeper than specified in the contract.

 He mentioned this to Carl, the owner of the ABC Dragline Co., standing nearby, who replied that some of his friends with sailboats live along the bayou and he thought he’d just give them a couple more feet of draft, like any good friend would do.

 Bill resumed his homeward journey and unintentionally found himself behind the dump truck. “Rats”, he thought, “how far am I going to have to follow this big dripper?” To his surprise the truck driver turned left at Bahia Vista Street and School Avenue, where his dredgings became fill on the future site of the SHS addition. Life was/is good.

(The names have been changed to protect the guilty)