Jiggs Landing family member forms group

Date: September 12, 2012
by: Pam Eubanks | Managing Editor

Friends of Historic Jiggs Landing founder Sandy Metcalf recently received this original watercolor painting from Patricia Banyas, who, with her husband, purchased the Jiggs Landing site from Metcalf's uncle and aunt, "Jiggs" and Agnes Metcalf, in the late 1960s. The painting hung in the original store at Jiggs Landing and had been thought lost for decad

EAST COUNTY — Sandy Metcalf is determined, now more than ever, to see her family’s legacy preserved.

Jiggs Landing, a Manatee County park and preserve located at 6106 63rd St. E., is named in honor of her uncle and aunt, “Jiggs” and Agnes Metcalf, who used the waterfront site both as their homestead and as a camp for fishermen.

And Metcalf now has formed a new group, Friends of Historic Jiggs Landing, to help ensure the property’s heritage remains a focal point.

Through the new organization, Metcalf continues to advocate for the restoration of Jiggs to better reflect what she saw there as a child; she pushed through delays at the county level to have historical panels — whose contents she wrote — installed at Jiggs. The panels went up in late August, months after Metcalf expected them to be erected, she said.

Metcalf had lobbied Manatee County Commissioner Larry Bustle and “Chips” Shore in recent weeks to move the project forward, she said.

“This response not only pleases me personally because I grew up at Jiggs Landing, but because I know it will please a great many people who remember Jiggs Landing in its heyday and will provide a historical context to the property for visitors with no prior knowledge of its place in Manatee County’s proud history,” Metcalf said of the panels’ installation.

“I was thrilled this could be put up before the (Manatee High School) class of 1962’s class reunion Oct. 27,” she said, noting a reunion event will be held at Jiggs Landing.

Metcalf said she still has other concerns, such as the placement of the panels and inaccuracies in the replica cabin that depicts her family’s former homestead, but she is working toward getting those items addressed by the county, she said.

Anyone seeking more information about Friends of Historic Jiggs Landing can contact Metcalf at smmetcalf@earthlink.net.

Contact Pam Eubanks at peubanks@yourobserver.com.