Chasing the Thrill by Daniel Barbarisi

Author:Daniel Barbarisi [Barbarisi, Daniel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2021-05-18T00:00:00+00:00

10

a famous family, a fabulous treasure

“So, this is actually the oldest elevator in all of Florida,” Megan McDowell told me as the ancient device ground its way toward the upper floors of Mel Fisher’s treasure-hunting complex in Key West, the headquarters of the most famous family of treasure hunters in the world, the family who had found the lost galleon Atocha and its half-billion-dollar hoard.

I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised about the elevator. In Key West, everything has a tourist-friendly sign on it, and most of them find some way to trumpet that they’re the oldest this in town, the oldest that in the state of Florida. On the way over here, I’d passed the “Oldest Bar in Florida” (Capt. Tony’s Saloon), the “Oldest Church in South Florida” (St. Paul’s Episcopal), the “Oldest House in Key West,” and then finally the “Oldest Schoolhouse in Key West.” These people take their history seriously down here, and they sell it hard.

The Oldest Elevator in Florida™ got us to the third floor safely, albeit a little slowly, and Megan stepped out ahead of me to lead the way to the office of her boss, Kim Fisher. The first and second floors of this building—an 1800s U.S. Navy warehouse, probably the oldest on this block or in this time zone, or something—are mostly taken up by the Mel Fisher Maritime Heritage Museum and Mel Fisher’s Treasures, the late treasure hunter’s outlet for selling gold and silver pieces to the public. But the third floor of the old warehouse is the headquarters of Treasure Salvors, Inc., perhaps the world’s most famous treasure-hunting company.

Walking through, it struck me that a treasure-hunting headquarters isn’t that different from any other company’s offices—there’s just a lot more gold and silver lying around. We passed a solid-silver bust of the late family patriarch, Mel Fisher, and framed gold pieces adorning the walls. There were silver bars on tables, and historic weapons and artifacts at seemingly every turn.

As I rounded the corner into Kim Fisher’s office, the CEO of Treasure Salvors rose to greet me. The Fishers are famously tall, and Kim is certainly no exception—Mel was six five, and Kim seemed to be somewhere around that height, though age and wear had stooped him somewhat. Mel Fisher died in 1998, but long before that, Kim had begun to take over the operations of Treasure Salvors. One of the three sons of Mel and Deo Fisher, Kim was the studious one. While brothers Dirk and Kane plied the waves in search of treasure, Kim went off to college and then law school, hoping that, in between treasure dives, he could help his family fight the seemingly endless legal battles with the government and others over the jurisdictions and ownership of their finds.

Once they had achieved their greatest successes, Kim settled in to run the business as his father aged, shepherding it into its next phase, gradually bringing up treasure from their older finds and setting out in search of new ventures.

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