Coral Castle: One Man, 1,100 Tons, No Explanation, Florida

Edward Leedskalnin was born in Latvia in 1887. According to the attraction’s own history, he stood just over five feet tall, weighed about 100 pounds, and had a fourth-grade education. His fiancée, remembered as his “Sweet Sixteen,” called off their wedding the day before the ceremony. He eventually emigrated, and in 1918 he settled in Florida. Starting around 1923, in Florida City, he began quarrying the porous oolite limestone beneath his land and carving it into walls, towers, tables, chairs and a large crescent moon. He worked alone. The museum says much of the work was done at night by lantern light, and that he built lookouts along the walls to keep watchers away. Around 1936, he decided to move everything. Over about three years, he hauled the carvings roughly 10 miles to Homestead on a trailer pulled by a borrowed tractor. People saw the stones roll down Dixie Highway, but the museum says no one saw him load or unload them. The finished site holds about 1,100 tons of rock. Its stones average around 15 tons, and the heaviest is about 30. Two monoliths rise 25 feet. A 9-ton gate, balanced on an old truck bearing, once turned with a push of one hand. Asked how he did it, Leedskalnin said only that he understood “the laws of weight and leverage.” Photographs and eyewitness accounts point to pulleys and simple tools. He died in 1951 after more than 28 years of work, and the site opened as an attraction in 1953.