The Place:Dedicated in 2007, this small double-leaf pedestrian drawbridge spans the mouth of the "Waaigat", a tiny inlet which opens into the St. Anna Bay separating downtown Willemstad into two local districts: Punda (the Point) and Otrobanda (the Other Side). The mouth of the Waaigat is home to small vessels used mostly for commercial purposes, namely a fleet of fruit and vegetables merchants selling their wares on the famous Floating Market right at the water's edge.
The pedestrian bridge is adorned with ornate counterweight levers, and features a unique architectural design: rather than the two leaves touching each other at the center of the bridge, each leaf spans the entire length of the drawbridge itself and covers half of the overall bridge's width, giving the appearance of two identical narrow single-leaf (and single-beam) drawbridges placed facing each other.
The Person:Leonard Burlington Smith (born in 1839 in Mill Creek, Maine) was a 19th century US Consul on the island of Curacao, whose great vision and ambitious projects helped lay the foundation for the development of the island’s modern infrastructure.
Per "
1000 Awesome Things About Curacao", Mr. Smith's early career started as a cabin boy in the USA at age 14, after which he worked his way up to Captain. By the age of 23 he was sailing and trading around the Atlantic on his own schooner. Smith sailed into Curacao’s Saint Anna Bay for the first time in 1876. He clearly saw an opportunity and returned that very same year locked and loaded with timber and ice from the Penobscot river in Maine.
Though Smith’s sea voyage took several weeks — with his last stretch in tropical heat! — Smith’s ice always arrived intact because he would pack it in sawdust from Maine’s timber mills.
Smith set up two “ice houses” on the Saint Anna Bay wharf and sold ice for 2 Dutch cents a pound (a significant luxury at the time). Locals were skeptical at first, believing these novel cold drinks unhealthy... But Smith persevered and kept serving the skeptics cold beer, quenching their thirst and instantly converting them into veritable ice lovers.
Smith knew he had struck (ice) gold and returned with his wife and 4 children in 1877. He became the official Curacao agent for the US company Joseph Foulke & Sons, Vice Consul of the US (1881) and US Consul (1884). In fact, Curacao’s US Consulate was considered one of the most important in the Caribbean at that time.
Smith continued to import ice from Maine and expanded his trade over time. He added makeshift ‘cool boxes’ for private use. Then he imported coal from the US to serve US and British steamships docking in Saint Anna Bay. He also exported salt from neighboring island Bonaire to the US for good measure.
Some of Smith’s accomplishments include:
* Connecting the Punda and Otrobanda side of Willemstad for the very first time by constructing Curaçao’s original pontoon-bridge in 1888 (Curaçao’s present pontoon bridge came in 1939, see "
WM1025T - Queen Emma Bridge - Willemstad, Curacao").
* Curacao’s first hotel in Otrobanda for US tourists fleeing cold winters.
* Curacao’s first waterworks.
* Curacao’s first electricity plant.
Smith was one of Curacao’s wealthiest inhabitants when he passed away in 1898.