<P> Blue Lagoon Island is a private island located 5 km (three miles) from Nassau, Bahamas and serves as a local tourist attraction . </P> <P> Prior to the late 19th century the island's lagoon was a salt marsh and was referred to legally as Salt Cay . The Island became a stopover for pirates and privateers who used the island to cull salt from the lagoon to preserve their food and as a rest stop while they waited for permission to enter Nassau Harbour . </P> <P> In 1875, Charles King - Harman, an Englishman who was later knighted and became Governor of Cyprus, bought the island from the British Crown for £ 35 . He owned it for 11 years, until he sold it to a Bahamian, Sir Augustus John Adderley, for £ 105 . Adderley kept it for six years . Two Americans who wanted to cultivate corn and vegetables offered him £ 145 . The farming effort failed and in 1902 they sold it to Abraham Van Winkle for a £ 10 loss (£ 135). Van Winkle hired hundreds of laborers to dredge out the salt marsh and blasted a cut into the lagoon from the sea, planted 5,000 palm trees and built over a mile of meandering concrete paths . He later imported a zoo of monkeys, peacocks, turkeys, pheasants, parrots, and iguanas to populate the paradise garden . He shared the island with the public by bringing guests over on his boat at a rate of $1 per person . </P> <P> From 1916 to 1979 (63 years) the island was owned by the McCutcheon family . John T. McCutcheon was the chief foreign correspondent of the Chicago Tribune, a Pulitzer Prize winner, and political cartoonist . He purchased the island (Salt Cay) by mail sight unseen for $17,500 from the estate of Van Winkle, a New Jersey manufacturer who had died . He called it Treasure Island and for decades it was known under that name in The Bahamas . </P>

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