Cortez Village

For 130 years, the little fishing village of Cortez, Florida, flourished and succeeded, showing a determined sense of community pride and cohesion. It was never a question of just survival. It was always a question of succeeding, and nothing succeeds unless a lot of effort is put into it. Cortez succeeded.Through seven generations, life has gone on in the village. During every year of the village's history, challenges threatened. Some challenges were so huge that the very existence of Cortez was at risk. The 1921 hurricane wiped out the waterfront without warning. Red tide destroyed all fishing, both commercial and recreational. The villagers outlasted the red tide and came back strong. They blocked undesirable developments. They stopped a marina whose proposed docks would block the natural channel. They sent the Florida Department of Transportation back to the drawing board by opposing a 65-foot high-rise bridge that would have encroached into the small hamlet like the elevated railroad in Chicago.The biggest challenge of all came in 1994, when recreational and sport fishing interests took to the polls and banned the use of nets for fishing. Cortez Village found new ways to harvest the sea and support families, never giving up on repealing the net ban some day in the future.Turn these pages and see why it takes a village to succeed.