Block Island Glass Float Atlas

Explore the island map

Start here: pan and zoom around Block Island to see where this sample’s finds were reported. Select a marker to see the floats found in that area, then open any float for its full record. The search and the year and source filters above apply to the map as well as to the cards below.

Markers show general areas only, never an exact find spot. Each marker sits on the trail or beach area named in the public record, Rodman’s Hollow, Meadow Hill, Mohegan Bluffs and so on. No marker is a GPS pin for where a float was hidden, and the number on a marker is the count of reported finds in this sample for that area.

Reported finds with no mapped area

Four records in this sample are deliberately not pinned. The map only marks an area when the public record names one and it can be placed reliably.

The sample atlas

Fourteen real reported finds, each one a single record keyed by year and float number. Tap any float for its full story. Records marked as cross-source finds never appeared in the registry at all, which is exactly the problem this atlas exists to fix.

No floats match that search.

Try a float number on its own (109, 249, 495), a finder name, or clear the year and source filters.

Browse by area

The island, organized the way finders actually describe it: by trail and beach, not by coordinates. Tap an area to filter the atlas. Counts are reported finds in this sample only. Two records appear at the end whose public excerpt names no area: the atlas shows them honestly instead of guessing a place for them.

When the sample finds happened

The 2024 registry records in this sample, by month found. The shape is familiar to anyone who knows the island: a quiet spring, then the summer season arrives.

Reported finds by month, 2024 registry sample

10 dated registry records. One further registry record (#443) has no date in its public excerpt and is not charted. Sample data only, not island-wide totals.

July alone holds half the dated sample, including two floats found on the same day, July 18, at opposite kinds of places: a trail by the airport and the beach at the Transfer Station.

One hunt, four scattered records

Today a single find can exist in several places at once, or in none of the official ones. The atlas does not replace any of these communities. It gives them one shared index to point at.

The official registry

Hosted by the Block Island Tourism Council at blockislandinfo.com. Finders pick a year and float number and can add a photo and story. Browsable by year only, with dates and places often buried in free text. All 11 registry records in this sample come from its public pages.

The project’s Instagram

Finds celebrated on the Glass Float Project’s own Instagram that never show up in a registry search, including the two 2025 records in this sample: a special float, #1, and a find 12 years in the making, #304.

Local press

Stories like the Stephen Pelletier family’s find at Martin Lots on July 1, 2025, reported by the Providence Journal after five years of searching. Rich stories, invisible to the registry.

22k

Facebook groups

The living community: a float forum of roughly 22,000 members plus Block Island groups where finds are posted and never registered. Semi-closed by nature, so this layer needs the community’s partnership, not scraping.

The key is already stamped on every orb

Each float is dated and numbered, so year + number is a natural unique ID. That is what lets the atlas merge the registry entry, the Instagram post and the newspaper story about the same orb into one record with three sources, instead of three scattered posts nobody can connect.

Monetization: who pays, and who never does

The model follows one rule: the people who make the project magical, the hiders and the hunters, are never the product and never the customer. Institutions and collectors fund it.

Free forever

Hunting, registering a find, and browsing the atlas stay free, permanently. The moment a find report sits behind a paywall, reports stop, and the atlas dies. Free is not a launch offer here. It is the business model’s foundation, because a complete, trusted record is the asset everything else is built on.

Revenue line 1

Partnership: Tourism Council and the nonprofit

A paid build plus an annual support agreement with the two institutions the atlas serves: the Block Island Tourism Council, which hosts the registry today, and the Glass Float Project nonprofit, which the project became in 2026.

One-time build fee for the full atlas and a registration form that feeds it directly
Annual support covering hosting, moderation, data cleanup and new-season setup
Season reporting they can use for fundraising, grants and press: reported finds by month, area and year
An asset for the nonprofit’s stated goals, funding environmental work and scholarships for Block Island art students

Who pays: the institutions. Why: they currently get a year-filtered list. This gives them the story of the project, in a form donors and visitors can actually explore.

Revenue line 2

Local sponsors, with a hard rule

A small number of clearly labeled sponsor placements for the businesses every hunter already uses: ferry, lodging, dining and shops. Sold as a season sponsorship, not per click.

Placements live on atlas pages and the annual printed edition, labeled as sponsors
Hard rule: no paid clues, ever. No sponsor can buy a hint, a location or a nudge toward any float
No sponsored exact locations. Sponsorship never changes what the atlas shows or how precisely it shows it
Area pages stay editorial: a sponsor appears beside an area, never inside a find record

Who pays: island businesses. Why: hunters are exactly the slow, exploring visitors those businesses want, and the atlas reaches them without compromising the hunt.

Revenue line 3

Collector products, optional extras

Things a finder can choose to buy to keep their find, which cost nothing to skip and unlock nothing in the atlas itself.

Printed annual atlas: a bound yearbook of the season’s reported finds, photos and stories, sold each fall
Collection passport: a personal keepsake where a hunter logs their own seasons, finds and trails walked, printed or digital
Gift editions for the finders in the sample above: your float, your story, properly typeset
Every product is built only from finds their owners chose to register publicly

Who pays: collectors and gift buyers, voluntarily. Why: a found float is a once-in-years moment. People happily pay to keep it well. They should never have to pay to report it.

Rejected on purpose

Charging hunters. No subscription to search, no fee to register, no premium tier for finders. It would shrink the record and betray the project’s spirit.
Advertising networks. No programmatic ads, no trackers, no auctioning hunter attention to off-island advertisers. Sponsors are few, local, named and labeled.
Selling location value. No paid clues, no sponsored pins, no early access to hiding patterns. The instant location becomes inventory, the hunt is over.
Selling finder data. Names appear only as finders chose to display them publicly. Nothing about who found what, where they live or when they visit is ever a product.

From sample to official record

This sample proves the concept from public data alone. Making it the real atlas is a partnership conversation, and the demo comes first.

Step one, this page

Prototype from public data

Real registry records normalized to a canonical place list, merged with cross-source finds, searchable by year and number. No permission needed, nothing private touched.

Step two

Show it to the partners

Bring the working atlas, not a pitch deck, to the Tourism Council and the Glass Float Project nonprofit. Timing is good: the project formalized as a nonprofit in 2026, and an atlas is a fundraising and storytelling asset for them.

Step three

Fix the source, not just the view

One registration form feeding the atlas, the project site and a share card for Facebook and Instagram. Facebook stays a community conversation, with admins and Eben Horton on board before anything there is republished.