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MARCO ISLAND — When Bill Tamplin and Bill Gentry rolled up their sleeves and decided to start a newspaper they wondered if there were enough folks on Marco Island to warrant their time and trouble. After all, most of the residents were seasonal, Marco was remote, and there wasn’t even a bridge over the river onto Collier boulevard. The pavement for the palm-lined avenue was complete, there were houses starting to spring up along the route, but the vast construction crew of the Deltona Corporation just didn’t look like newspaper readers — they were too busy!

The year was 1968, and as Bill Tamplin became the first publisher and Bill Gentry the first editor, the Marco Eagle began as a newly hatched fledgling that would grow with a new, exciting, and rapidly expanding community. Even from the beginning, and over the following decades, the Marco Eagle would become an island sounding board, an entertainment and dining guide, and a media vehicle for launching one of the most successful real estate markets in Florida.

Today when we walk outside and pick up a Marco Eagle, the product now delivered is as different as the island was when the Mackle brothers decided that Marco Island was too far south to compete with the rest of Florida and therefore this tropical paradise was going to compete with Hawaii and Polynesia.

When the Marco Eagle was operating out of a few rooms in the back of the Marco post office, the production of the physical paper was vastly different than it is today. Cut and paste really was, cut and paste. The Eagle was produced by typing columns with typewriters, and then cutting and pasting the columns onto boards that made up two pages of newspaper. Graphic art was introduced and placed on the “boards” only after it had been cut out of a clip art book and then sent through a waxing machine. There were no computers, no fax machines, and the Eagle, like all other newspapers at the time, was printed only in black and white. When all the Eagle’s pages were meticulously pasted on “the boards” and a final proof was completed, one of the staff would place the boards in a car, drive to Sebring, Florida, and wait for the paperboards to be printed. After printing, the Eagle staffer would drive the completed copy back to Marco and distribute the island paper.

In 1969, when the Collier Boulevard bridge over the Marco River — now the Judge S.S. Jolly Bridge — was completed, this was a major headline and subsequent Eagle editions featured heated debates over the price of the toll to cross onto Marco.

When the Mackle Brothers opened the Marco Yacht Club, the Marco Country Club, and finally the Marco Beach Hotel and Villas in 1971, the Eagle was there with reporters and photographers.

As the annual Tony Lema golf tournament and the prestige of the Marco Beach Hotel began to attract dignitaries such as Richard Nixon and Bob Hope, the Eagle was poised to record these historical Marco moments.

During the height of the Cold War, the Marco Eagle began construction on the new Marco Island office and the construction methods were certainly a sign of the times. The publisher’s office was not only assigned bulletproof windows, but the heart of the Eagle was protected with lead-lined walls to ward off radiation in case of a nuclear attack. The Eagle had contingency plans no matter what!

As the first Marco Trolley pulled out from the Collier Chevron station, the Eagle was there, as well as when National Guard troops were assigned to guard and enforce gasoline sales and distribution.

When the Rosie O’Shea sounded her steam whistle and began paddling her Mississippi-River-Boat paddlewheels upon the Marco waterways, the Marco Eagle was ready with a nautical report.

Every hurricane that ever threatened or came near Marco was carefully watched with eagle eyes and quickly downgraded to just the facts and not the sensational television antics that reported, “Worse than Katrina, Marco is devastated,” and “Marco has a 16 to 22 foot tidal surge!”

From the days where the abandoned shell of an old missile tracking station huddled on Marco’s most southwestern shore, to the present day as the colorful history of Marco now continues with our very own historical museum, the Marco Eagle and all the contributors, remain dedicated to providing factual reports on everything from polices and politics to entertainment and entrepreneurs.

The history of newspapers is an incredible experience in human nature and a great study of cause and effect scenarios. Before the birth of Christ, Julius Caesar proclaimed to the citizens of Rome that an information scroll would be posted throughout the city. There would be information gatherers and an organized bureau to oversee the process and any pertinent information with public value would be posted on a regular basis. The Acta Diurna or (Daily Events) became so popular that early morning Romans would wait for the first newspapers well before the information sheets could be distributed. On some occasions, when no one was watching, an entire edition of Acta Diurna would be snatched away from the official public station to be taken home and privately cherished. Eventually, legislature was passed offering severe punishment for any ordinary citizen caught with a Roman newssheet.

As the Marco Eagle celebrates 40 years, and as our island community continues to grow, one aspect of any newssheet remains constant. No matter what political point of view, or personal preference for an issue, a newspaper can only be as human and alive as the persons that nurture and steward her growth.

A toll to cross over the bridge or no toll? City or county? Sewer or septic? The issues can be heated, complicated, and passionate!

In 1968, when the Marco Eagle emerged as Marco’s first newspaper, America was definitely going though some growing pains. Dr. Martin Luther King and Senator Robert Kennedy were both assassinated, there were extensive racial riots in major cities, Vietnam was quickly becoming a deadly quagmire and the Hong Kong Flu pandemic ravaged the Pacific Rim. Hippies and radicals were burning bras, American flags, draft cards, and taking LSD, and the Mackle brothers were having trouble selling waterfront real estate for $3,000.

Rising above the first editions of the Eagle, and beyond all the trials and tribulations concerning the world and the United States, a little space ship bravely carried three Americans to the moon.

It wasn’t until 1969 that the Apollo Eagle landed on the moon, but in 1968 the Eagle landed on Marco and an island newspaper was born.

Special thanks to Sandi Riedemann-Lazarus for helping with this article.