America's Stonehenge the Coral Castle

Just south of Miami in Homestead, Florida is the infamous Coral Castle, built single-handedly by one man over hundred years ago as a monument to Lost Love.

Legend has it that Edward Leedskalnin, a Latvian immigrant was inspired to build the structures after being abandoned by his 16 year old runaway bride on the day before their wedding.

Spurned by his lost love, he set out to prove to her and the world that he could do something remarkable.

Born to a family of stonemasons with a fourth grade education, Edward stood 5 ft tall and weighed 100 lb and was chronically sick with respiratory illness.

Coming to America in 1912 he left New York to work in the Pacific Northwest in the lumber and foresting industry and in the early twenties he bought land in South Florida.

He began carving and shaping by hand at night fossilized coral called oolite limestone that looks like honeycombs.

He did all this without the use of electricity or power tools and he used no cement.

Always working in the cover of night, so nobody really knows how he actually accomplished all of this as some of the stones weighed 30 tons.

The only eyewitness sighting of him working include two teenagers who said the blocks seem to float like helium balloons.

Leedskalnin said “I understand the laws of weight and leverage and I know the secrets of the people who built the pyramids”   Some of the rocks were twice as big as the largest rocks used to build the pyramids.

His revolving door weighs 9 tons which a child could move and initially was called Rock Gate Park.

When a truck arrived with a large stone he always made the drivers leave the site.   No one ever saw Ed unload the stones.

By himself he had moved 3 million pounds of Rock!

He wrote a book called Magnetic Current, but many believe he had supernatural abilities to move the stones.

The Coral Castle is a unique place to visit and an astounding sight to see.  Admission is $18 and the guides are terrific.

The In Search of TV series “the Castle of Secrets” video attached here really tells the story well.

Haunted by a Dream – his Sweet 16 right here Route 1.