50@50: The story behind FIU island (aka Henington Island)

To celebrate the university’s 50th anniversary, FIU News is sharing 50 moments in FIU’s history as part of our “50@50″ series.

In 1989, the FIU community honored Charles Henington, the university’s first and only superintent of grounds.

By the late 1980s, Modesto A. Maidique Campus was a garden of exotic trees, plants and flowers. The careful and artistic landscaping was due mostly to the eye and green thumb of Henington, who passed away at the age of 42. “Henington Island” – a unique man-made island with rare and beautiful tropical foliage at the north rim MMC – was dedicated in his memory during a ceremony Sept. 29, 1988.

Don Ashley, the [former] director of Physical Plant who worked with Henington 12 years, remembered him as the man who turned ideas into reality.

“People would come to him with landscaping plans and he was the guy who did the work,” Ashey said.

“We often talked of trying to put an island in the middle of the lake by the dorms. He’d be proud of the concept of “Henington Isand.”

Today,  the small, forested island remains on the north side of campus, by 8th St. and 112th Ave. The tropical trees are meant to recreate a tropical rainforest environment. Although the island is completely inaccessible to visitors, the surrounding freshwater wetlands, including cypress/maple swamp habitat are open to the public for viewing.

Henington also began the FIU Nature Preserve.

*Excerpts taken from Thomas D. Riley’s A History of FIU: Celebrating Excellence, Creating Opporunity.