A mile off the coast of Cape Florida on the edge of Biscayne Bay, in Miami-Dade County, you can see a collection of houses floating above the shallow water. This is the community of Stiltsville, a group of wooden houses and shacks standing on wood and reinforced concrete pilings, set up towards the end of the prohibition era, allegedly to facilitate gambling, which was not allowed within a mile offshore from the coast.

The story goes that the first shack on stilts was built by "Crawfish" Eddie Walker in the early 1930's, although some historians claim there were shacks out in "the flats", as the area was known, as early as 1922. In addition to being a gambling den, Crawfish Eddie sold bait and beer from his shack and was known for his chilau, a crawfish chowder made with crawfish he caught under his shack. Over the years, Eddie Walker’s shack was joined by more clubs and soon Stiltsville became a hotbed for booze and illegal gambling.

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