Before the Bridge: The Man Who Dreamed Up Siesta Key

If you've ever turned onto Higel Avenue on your way to the beach, you've driven past a name without perhaps knowing its story. Most people do. They're thinking about parking, about the water, about whether they remembered the sunscreen. But that street name belongs to one of the most extraordinary — and ultimately tragic — figures in Gulf Coast history. A man who looked at a remote, mosquito-ridden barrier island that barely appeared on maps and saw, with complete clarity, what it could become.

His name was Harry Higel. And without him, there might not be a Siesta Key as we know it.