22 West Palm Beach Fishing Club One of the early roles of the West Palm Beach Fishing Club (WPBFC) was to serve as a fishing museum where tourists could view many of the prolific game fish that were caught from local waters. Taxidermy in those days involved preserving and using many parts of the actual fish including the skin, scales, fins and bills. Among the most tal- ented marine taxidermy art- ists of the day was a gentleman named Fred C. N. Parke. Parke was from Maine and had a genuine love of the ocean In 1896 he became an apprentice with the S.L. Crosby Company in Bangor, Maine, then one of the leading taxidermy establishments in the U.S. There he learned to carve, to sculpt, and to paint, in addition to all the other arts of taxidermy. He mounted ev- erything from brook trout to moose. Parke opened his own taxidermy business in Greenville Junction, Maine, in the first decade of the 20th century. In that era before the automobile, the railroad was was all-important in carrying sportsmen to hunting and fishing destinations, and to taxidermists, who needed to be located at junctions to receive tro- phies fresh for mounting and to send finished mounts to their new owners. Parke followed Henry Flagler’s construction of the Florida East Coast Railway and the advent of the Florida winter vacation with great interest. It was no coincidence that when the Overseas Railroad reached the Keys and Flagler opened the Long Key Fishing Camp, Parke was there and opened an office. It was at Long Key where Parke met Zane Grey and Ernest Hemingway, and taxidermed fish for important clients such as President Herbert Hoover. Fish were measured for mounting and skinned on the spot at Long Key. The preserved skins were shipped, via railroad, to Parke’s studio in Maine for mounting. The Maine-Florida connection was ideal for Parke. He had business from Maine fishing and hunting enthusiasts in summer and fall, and business from Florida, and eventu- ally the Bahamas, in the winter and spring. His Maine- based taxidermy establishment became the largest in the United States. Parke eventually made his winter home in West Palm Beach, with his studio and a marine museum at the old Inlet Dock, located inside the Palm Beach Inlet. The museum was quite a popular local attraction in the early 1930s as noted by big game fishing author and historian, Mike Rivkin in his book, The West Palm Beach Fishing Club: A 75 Year History. “Chief among its displays were more than 160 mounted fish spanning the variety of sea creatures found off the Palm Beaches. Attendance was astounding, often reaching 300 visitors during in-season weekdays and up to 1,000 on Sundays,” wrote Rivkin. Parke was very supportive of the WPBFC. Early win- ners of the WPBFC’s Silver Sailfish Derby received not only the coveted Mrs. Henry R. Rea Trophy for the longest sailfish, but would arrange to have their prize winning catch mounted free of charge. In 1941 when the club opened its new headquarters at Fifth and North Flagler Drive it was Parke who donated the fish mounts to adorn the walls. Parke was an important figure in the history of taxidermy. His fish mounts were hand-carved from solid, kiln-dried white pine and his skins were hand-painted with silver leaf and metallic pigments, then lacquered, to give the fish that glistening look of being fresh from the sea. In an era before color photogra- phy, Parke had to be intimate with the colors and markings of countless species of game fish. The only way to accomplish that, he said, was to fish himself and create water colors on the spot. Parke did small fish as well as large. He was preferred by natural history museums including the Academy of Natural Science in Philadelphia and the American Museum of Natural His- tory in New York. A Fred Parke barracuda caught by Zane Grey and a blue marlin caught by Ernest Hemingway are on display at the L.C. Bates Museum in Hinckley, Maine. The WPBFC is fortunate to have had a long association with Parke in its early years. We are honored and grateful that some of his original mounts remain among the club’s extensive collection. Taxidermist Parke was Pioneering Artist Fred Parke works on a sailfish mount. Photo courtesy of University of Tulsa's McFarlin Library. Author Dr. Susan Beegel, retired editor of The Hemingway Review, provided much of the content on this story. She is currently researching Fred Parke and his relationship with Ernest Hemingway. She would love to hear from any WPBFC members with Parke or Hemingway memorabilia or useful information. Old Parke Taxidermy catalogues would be especially help- ful. Dr. Beegel can be reached at sbeegel@aol.com Parke Memorabilia Sought....