The Tribune

CURTIS Johnson, the Bahamian who established the first commercial aquarium of marine life in The Bahamas, has died. He was 93.

Located in Chippingham, the nine-acre educational and recreational Seafloor Aquarium opened in March 1967 and delighted tourists and Bahamians.

Mr Johnson was also a pioneer in local jewellery manufacturing. When he retired in December 1993, he had consistently contributed to the growth of tourism, industry and commerce in The Bahamas for 49 years.

Mr Johnson and his wife, Dorothy, opened their tortoise shell business, Johnson Brothers, Ltd, in a tiny shop on King Street in downtown Nassau on December 16, 1944.

His business began as a hobby. He designed his first piece of jewellery at 17. It wasn’t long before he had quite a few customers. For six years he produced enough jewellery in his spare time to sell it at The City Pharmacy and another shop in downtown Nassau.

In 1944, he left his full-time job as a postal clerk to open Johnson Brothers. With two well-stocked showcases and 12 pounds (roughly $50), he established his business in a small shop on King Street.

“About 3000 men from the RAF (Royal Air Force) were stationed in The Bahamas and they were some of our first customers. The war was still on but it seemed to be the right time to open,” he recalled.

In the early days of the business, Mr Johnson worked day and night to keep up with the stock. “At first we made bracelets, broaches, necklaces, earrings, paper knives and letter-openers,” he said.

His quality craftsmanship quickly became popular. On many occasions, Ministry of Tourism representatives visited Johnson Brothers to find the perfect gift for a visiting dignitary. Princess Margaret received an exquisite tortoise shell vanity case present in 1953. Her Majesty, the Queen has a collection of tortoise shell pieces, including an oversized letter-opener and a handbag.

Tourists who shopped at Johnson Brothers while on vacation, often ordered jewellery by mail catalogue when they returned home. It was exported duty-free.

His staff grew from two to 26 in a short time.

In the early 1950s, Mr Johnson relocated to the Kelly’s Hardware Building on Bay Street. He had the idea to create a miniature aquarium with Hawksbill turtles in a glass tank above a jewellery store and workshop. “At that time we ate turtle the same way we eat conch today. The meat was removed from the shell and cut up for turtle stew, turtle steaks, or chopped for turtle burgers. I bought the shell and made jewellery from the hard shell of the Hawskbill turtle. The reaction to the tank was overwhelming and that’s when my dream to open an aquarium began,” he said.

In 1953, he gained permission to build an aquarium on property immediately east of Brown’s Boat Basin. Eventually this offer was rescinded and he later bought another property in Chippingham, site of Seafloor Aquarium.

Seafloor dazzled its first audience on March 17, 1967. Rainbow parrot fish, grouper, trumpetfish, stingrays, houndfish, porcupine fish, testy nurse sharks made themselves at home in an 80,000 gallon reef tank and swarmed around a diver, politely grabbing dinner from his hand.

In a Bahamian lagoon, “fishermen” fought to capture a 65-pound Loggerhead turtle while a miniature Santa Maria rocked off Seafloor’s San Salvador island.

Nearby dolphins tail-danced the Nassau rhumba and cavorted their way through all-star basketball, sea lions pounded out “The Star Spangled Banner” and “March On Bahamaland” on pipe organs.

Mr Johnson said one of the things about Seafloor that made it different from other aquariums was that “it was small (9.11 acres). All tanks were built to resemble the ocean floor itself. We had the real corals, the real rocks, the real sand. Everything in it was Bahamian with the exception of the sea lions, which were refugees from California.”

He operated a complimentary bus – often with a sea lion on board – to transport visitors from downtown Nassau to Seafloor in Chippingham. Over the years he admitted hundreds of travel agents without charge.

In addition to providing a tremendous tourist attraction, Curtis was interested in the educational aspect of an aquarium. The aquarium delighted thousands of Bahamian school children, providing them with a close-up look at Bahamian marine life. Many other young people celebrated birthdays there.

“Even today, I meet people who told me how much they enjoyed the shows, especially the dolphin and sea lion acts. And they remember what a thrill it was to have their birthday parties there,” he said in 2009.

When the aquarium opened, the jewellery manufacturing workshop relocated to its premises. Tourists now had the option to watch though windows as craftsmen and women created tortoise shell pieces.

After the sudden ban on the importation of tortoise shell products into the United States in 1974, Mr Johnson turned back to creating jewellery from conch and whelk shell and black coral, a hobby he had dabbled in years before.

At the time, he said: “We had produced a little of it when we first opened in 1944 but when tortoise shell took off, we stopped. Eighty per cent of our visitors were from the U.S. It seemed like it was almost time for us to retire but we had a workshop crew who had been with us for more than 30 years. We had to go on,” he said.

The Bahamas Chamber of Commerce honoured Mr Johnson in 1976 with a Distinguished Citizen’s Award. His high quality products and creativity made him the top citizen in business.

One year short of its 50th birthday, Johnson Brothers closed in December 1993. The aquarium closed a few years earlier in January 1989.

In retirement, Mr Johnson joined Gold’s Gym (at 78), enrolled in painting classes at Queen’s College, read, walked daily and swam several times a week until last summer when ill health prevented him from living independently. He died at his condominium in Blair Estates on Friday, July 13, 2012.