Mathers Bridge and Restaurant

'Paradise Lost'  16 x 20 collection of Dr. and Mrs. Craig Henry

Another of my favorite 'funky (real) Florida' spots, the hotel (in the background with the colorful roof) burned down in 1993, probably caused by a transient who was squatting there.  The restaurant is now decomposing and falling into the Banana River, a victim of the neighbor's NIMBY (not in my back yard) campaign some years later.  The bridge itself was originally built in the 1920's by the Mathers family patriarch,  and was a private toll bridge into the 1940's.  It is the oldest existing bridge in Brevard County.