Retired library director creates digital archive

Country band Alabama recorded a song called “Down on Longboat Key” in the 1980s about a woman whose heart was stolen by a dark-haired sailor and spends her life sipping piña coladas on Longboat Key.

Longboat Key Historical Society Vice President Chet Pletzke found it through a YouTube search and included it on the website of the Longboat Key Historical Society, longboatkeyhistory.com, which has a constantly growing section called “The Digital History of Longboat Key.” It’s one of four songs about Longboat Key on the website.

Pletzke is the retired head of the Bethesda Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences Library, but most of his methods for researching Longboat Key history aren’t high-tech. He mostly finds tidbits from talking to people, word of mouth and a healthy dose of curiosity.

“It’s just a fascination,” Pletzke said. “You look at something and say, ‘That’s interesting.’ You look further and further and further.”

Currently, the website includes archives of past publications and old maps, photographs, post cards, brochures and advertisements, many of which were in the Historical Society’s museum that closed in 2012.

He began scanning contents from the museum, as well as transferring interviews with important Key figures that past Historical Society President Tom Mayers conducted in digital format.

“I think it’s the only way there’s going to be any historic memory of Longboat Key,” Pletzke said. “I don’t think a museum is viable. They didn’t have the resources to put anything into the museum. The way for the items to exist is in a digital museum.”

He has found other items through the State Archives of Florida, Longboat Observer archives and long-time residents, who sometimes approach Pletzke about his project.

Recently, for example, a resident of Spanish Main Yacht Club, where Pletzke lived, approached him after a board meeting and said she had a family scrapbook with old photos of the community. He knows old family photos are important to people, so he scans items and returns them.

Sometimes, the digital archives help people when they try to identify the old motels and restaurants they visited during childhood.

Compiling the history of the Key is an educational experience for Pletzke. One lesson he has learned:

“The thing that Longboat Key is famous for is its lawsuits. That gets reaffirmed whenever I start scanning,” Pletzke said.

HISTORIC ARTIFACTS
Chet Pletzke is constantly seeking materials for the Longboat Key Historical Society website, including old photographs, post cards and more. One thing he would especially like to include: old copies of the Gulf Gale, the two-page newspaper that 12-year-olds Charles Whitney and James Libert published in the early 1940s.

Anyone with artifacts can contact Pletzke at [email protected].

To visit the Historical Society’s digital archives, visit longboatkeyhistory.com and click “The Digital History of Longboat Key.”

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected]