Work on the Bryan County Fisherman’s Coop public recreation area may not have started yet, but the county recently got a hand-made model of what it looked like in its glory days during the 1980s and early 1990s.
Leonard Crosby, a longtime local shrimper and fisherman and an artist and local historian, donated his model of the Co-op to the county, which in turn honored him Oct. 12 at a meeting of the Bryan County Board of Commissioners.
“To me this is a beautiful part of Bryan County’s history,” said District 5 Commissioner Gene Wallace, a retired dentist. “That man lived it, built it and was down there at the Co-op in its heyday.”
Crosby received a plaque from County Commission Chairman Carter Infinger, who called the model beautiful and the Co-op and important piece of local history.
“I think it’s important as a coastal community that we have this. This is public access to the water and we want to preserve that,” Infinger said. “It’s taken a lot of work to get where we’re at, and we’ve still got a lot of work to do.”
Bryan County bought the Co-op, which had fallen into disrepair, for $3.25 million in 2020 with plans to turn it into a recreational area for the public. The county in 2022 got $3 million in funding from the Department of Natural Resources for the project, which will include boat ramps, docks, a pavilion, a nature trail and more.
Crosby told commissioners he gave 30 years of his life to the co-op, adding “I was the second boat to dock there and the last one to leave,” and was glad the county bought it instead of developers.
“I’m glad Bryan County got the property, because if you didn’t it would’ve ended up like Darien down there with condos and restaurants and all (on the waterfront),” Crosby said. “We built that for the future … and I’m glad Bryan County got it first.”
Wallace said he was “so tickled and honored we were able to get this thing. It’ll be something 50 years from now when all of us here are not even here anymore, Mr .Crosby’s legacy will live on from the Co-op and we’ll have something beautiful to admire.”
