Historic marker is back

The town of Longboat Key has replaced a World War II memorial missing from its signpost near the town's mid-key water station at 4250 Gulf of Mexico Drive.

Mike and Nicki Bergin walk past the memorial on their daily walk along Gulf of Mexico Drive to Harry’s Continental Kitchens. The Longboat Key couple is thrilled the town replaced the sign after they noticed it missing even before the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in March.

“Thank you so much for your effort/support,” the Bergins wrote in an email to the Longboat Observer.

The memorial is one of seven erected around the island in 1997. It documents Longboat Key’s role in training Army Air Corps pilots in the 1940s. The pilots would practice hitting bombing targets.