Waiting for Agnes

by Joe Bullard

Coral Castle sits on Key West Highway in Homestead, Florida. It was built by a Latvian immigrant with a fourth grade education named Ed Leedskalnin. Jilted on the eve of his wedding in 1912to Agnes Scuffs, the only girl he ever loved, Ed was crushed by her rejection (which she never completely explained to him) and he came to south Florida after traveling around Canada, Texas and California.

Ed was found at night, passed out on a dirt road by a passerby in 1918. Ed was later diagnosed with terminal tuberculosis. The attending doctor told Ed, "Your body is eaten up with tuberculosis--I don't even know how you've made it this far--you have four months to live--maybe six months if you're lucky."

Ed stayed in the home of Herman Harmless where he regained some of his strength. He expressed a desire for some land, a local farmer felt sorry for him and gave him some worthless land that was covered by one inch of top soil and underneath this was four thousand feet of solid coral. The man told Ed the land "was worthless unless you want to farm coral rocks. This was exactly what Ed planned to farm.

Ed went to a junkyard and fashioned his own tools from discarded automobile parts. Ed only worked from midnight to sunrise so no one ever could see how he cut and moved huge blocks of jagged coral (Ed's largest stone weighed 30 tons) and formed them into today's Coral Castle.

This book describes in detail why Ed left his home in Latvia (one of the Baltic States near Russia) came to Florida and built Coral Castle at the edge of the Florida Everglades. It also explores a popular theory of how Ed might have cut and moved stones heavier than those of the Great Pyramid. The true secret of this lost science can never be known, it went into the grave with Ed when he died in a Miami hospital in the same year that I was born, 1951.

When asked how he built Coral Castle, Ed smiled and said, "I know the secret of the Great Pyramid." When asked why he built it, Ed looked off admiringly over the Atlantic Ocean, in the direction of his beloved Latvia and said, "I built it for Agnes--she's coming back to me one day, but I don't know when; until she comes, I'm waiting for Agnes."

334 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

Reviews

[Cameron Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are some serious literary issues with this book. There is not a single chapter, there are some grammatical errors and at times it can be confusing because of the lack of chapter breaks.
Still, this was a very interesting story about Coral Castle and Ed Leedskalnin. The guy was maybe insane, but he was obviously very intelligent too. This book is a wild ride through stories of the great pyramids, Atlantis, Native American rituals, long lost love, and reincarnation that all relate to Ed’s life.
I’m glad my aunt gave me this book, I do believe Coral Castle is a great wonder if the world and I want to visit it now.