page_title: Florida Maritime Museum
section_title: Pillsbury Boat Shop
hierarchical_section_title: Florida Maritime Museum / Historic Structures and Grounds / Pillsbury Boat Shop
caption_attribution_description: English: A 1900 postcard picture of the 100-foot long steamboat Mistletoe of the Florida Fish and Ice Company, owned by John Savarese of Tampa and Longboat Key. Photo courtesy of Manatee County Public Library System.
context_page_description: The Florida Maritime Museum is a museum, sponsored by Manatee County Clerk of Circuit Courts, located on 4 acres of land within the historic fishing village of Cortez, Florida.
  The museum tells a number of stories pertaining to all aspects of Florida’s maritime history. Exhibits include historic photographs, boat models, tools, instruments, and other historic artifacts. The museum also features a large collection of shells from the Gulf of Mexico. The museum is also home to a folk school that teaches traditional Florida skills and a research library with a variety of books, plans, logs, diaries, periodicals, letters, records and related archival material whose content is relevant to research concerning maritime subjects, with special emphases on Florida’s Gulf Coast.
  The museum is housed in a 1912 schoolhouse building at the 95-acre Cortez Nature Preserve at 4415 119th Street West. Other historic structures located on the site include the 1890 Burton Store, a wood cistern, and the Pillsbury Boat Shop.
context_section_description: Edward Ithamar Pillsbury (1844-1930) started the Snead Island Boat Works on Snead Island in 1907. The Pillsbury Boat Shop was the first building constructed at the Snead Island Boat Works and named in honor of his son, Asa Harmon Pillsbury (1900-1985). As the boat works grew to accommodate the demand for larger boats, additional buildings were added to the complex and the original building was modified for use as a machine shop, housing a lathe, small milling machine, and other metal working tools. Eventually the property was sold in 1930s and the Pillsburys moved the structure to their home three miles away. It served as a machine shop there, too, and was used to repair the Pillsbury dredging company's equipment. In 2007, the historic boat shop was transported, with sheriff escort, from Palmetto to the Florida Maritime Museum in Cortez.
caption: A 1900 postcard picture of the 100-foot long steamboat Mistletoe of the Florida Fish and Ice Company. Photo courtesy of Manatee County Public Library System.
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