History Of Grand Bahamas - Part 2

The Grand Bahama Island was left alone until the mid nineteenth century. Many ships were on the horizon as ships went through the Caribbean, most of the time they passed by. In 1836 the population of West End was only 370 because many of the people has left for Nassau, which was more populated and had more opportunities. In 1861 the population doubled rapidly due to the American Civil War.

Because of the Union blockade and embargo of the Confederacy of Southern States, the Confederacy relied on smugglers to get the sugar, cotton, and weapons in and out. This was essential to the war effort and the smugglers were able to get hefty prices for their goods sold to the Southern States. When the war ended, so did the boom in business for the Bahamas. The short burst of booming business set a standard from then on and that was the history of Grand Bahama Island was intimately tied to the United States.

Another smuggling boom came from a different kind of banned good in the United States - alcohol. The smugglers and the residents of West End once again were living in the lap of luxury and enjoying prosperity once more time. The Prohibition era in the United States brought warehouses, distilleries, bars, supply stores, and inns to West End. In the night they would sail dragging huge cylinders of liquor behind them tied with ropes. When the American Coast Guard chased them, they would cut the ropes and retrieve the cylinder after the Coast Guard had gone. Just like the Civil War, America solved its problem and the economy of the West End in the Bahamas went down and the residents had to resort to fishing again for their livelihood. When tourism started the economy changed again for good.

In 1955 Freeport was still just a pine forest. There were no lights from the casino, or the resorts, and there were no jet skiers flying across the waves. The Grand Bahamas was a place where only a few hundred people made their living off the sea. At the time it would have been hard to imagine that the same island would soon become the typical playground of the Caribbean.

One man did envision it becoming a tropical playground. A man named Wallace Groves was an American financier from Virginia. He had lived on the islands since the 1940s. He owned a lumber company at Pine Ridge and was devoted to the idea of the island as a tourist hot spot. Located less than a hundred miles from the coast of the United States and their teaming economy. Cuba was getting all the American vacationers by the thousands, and Groves thought the beauty of the Bahamas could be an option to the overcrowded beaches of Cuba. In 1955 he talked to Bahamian government with his ideas of building a place to cater to both industry and tourists. Shortly after, a document known as the Hawksbill Creek Agreement was signed and Freeport was created.