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    Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island
    Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island
    Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island
    Ebook201 pages1 hour

    Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island

    By Chelle Koster Walton

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Based on our much larger guide to Tampa Bay & Florida's West Cost, this zeroes in on Fort Myers & Sanibel Island, Pine Island & Out Islands, Captiva, Fort Myers Beach, San Carlos Park & Estero, Bonita Springs & Bonita Beach. This easy-to-use book is packe
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHunter Publishing
    Release dateNov 2, 2009
    ISBN9781588438416
    Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island

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      Book preview

      Fort Myers, Cape Coral, Captiva & Sanibel Island - Chelle Koster Walton

      disposition.

      The History of Adventure

      If you're looking for adventure, you're in the right place. West Coast Florida, as one of the nation's final frontiers, claims a history and heritage of rugged outdoorsmanship.

      While the rest of the nation was busily traveling along paved roads and buying their supplies from general stores, in the farthest corners of Florida's Gulf Coast down Naples way and in the Florida Everglades folks were still trading with the natives for victuals and dredging enough land out of the swamps to build the Tamiami Trail. The West Coast of Florida was considered a wild, exotic place then, a place for safaris and catching giant silver fish; a place where prehistoric turtles, alligators, manatees, and horseshoe crabs thrived, where trees danced, birds dive-bombed, dolphins grinned, flowers bloomed at night, and winter never came.

      The First Visitors

      The first white men traveled to western Florida for adventure. And they found it aplenty: half-naked natives, tricky waterways, impenetrable swamps, and enough fowl and fish to thicken seas, sky, and fire-brewed stews. In search of gold and youth, they chose to grumble, kill the natives, and curse the rest. They brought their own hogs, cows, and citrus to eat, then eventually left, discouraged by the persistent onslaughts from the resident Amerindian tribes the Calusa in the south, the Timucua around today's Tampa and Sarasota. Evidence of important Amerindian centers of culture has been found in Marco Island, Mound Key, Pine Island, Useppa Island, Manasota Key, Terra Ceia, Safety Harbor, and Crystal River.

      Juan Ponce de León was the first recorded European to set foot upon these shores, somewhere in Charlotte Harbor. Hernando De Soto landed at today's Fort Myers Beach or Bradenton, depending upon whom you believe. Ensuing parties established forts, missions, and colonies at Mound Key, Fort Myers Beach, Pine Island, and other strategic spots along the coast.

      Juan Ponce de León

      Legends fill the region's early timelines with dastardly pirates who came to prey upon ships sailing between the Caribbean and established towns in northern Florida. Much has been exaggerated, particularly the legend of Gasparilla, upon which a Tampa festival and a coastline attitude of devil-may-care thrive. The mottled backwaters of the West Coast undoubtedly harbored many a refugee from the law, but few as colorful as publicity agents have painted them.

      More prevalent in the 17th through the 19th centuries were Spanish fishermen and gutsy farmers. Later, in the Charlotte Harbor area, commercial fishing developed into a thriving industry. Fishermen lived in stilt houses built on sand shoals from Placida to the Ten Thousand Islands. A handful of the historic shacks remain.

      In many ways, fishing settled the West Coast. Farming proved less dependable, what with hurricanes and pests. Sugar plantations around Bradenton and Homosassa came and went with the wind. In later years, a reputation for great sportfishing brought well-heeled adventurers to the coast, which eventually put the region on the map of the socially connected.

      The 1800s

      In the meantime, war introduced others to this balmy, palmy land. Florida, after being passed back and forth between Spain and England, became a US territory in the early 1820s. Shortly thereafter, Governor Andrew Jackson, to defend against the Seminole tribes he had angered, built forts on Lake Holathlikaha near today's Inverness, Tampa Bay, and the Caloosahatchee River at today's Fort Myers. Later, Civil and Spanish-American War fortifications were built on Egmont and Mullet keys, at the mouth of Tampa Bay. In the wake of war came ex-soldiers and their families. Then followed industry and tourism.

      St. Petersburg was built in 1887 as a health resort, and Tampa, formerly Fort Brooke, gained a reputation as such. Railroads, cigar factories, and hotels started the twin cities down the path to becoming the region's metropolitan hub. Islands and coastal towns to the south remained the domain of the intrepid. It wasn't until big names such as Ringling and Edison became associated with the region that people sat up and took serious notice.

      The 1900s to the Present

      They came to fish. They came to swim in the warm, gentle Gulf waves. They came to hunt, to escape, to winter. They came to stay. Since the 1940s, the coast's population has built steadily. As more people came to reside permanently, cities developed along typical lines, adding services and culture to their slate of resorts, restaurants, and beachside facilities.

      Adventure has always been a major part of what the coast offers. As eco-tourism came into fashion, emphasis shifted to this aspect of vacationing. To the fishing charters, tour boats, parasailing concessions, and Hobie Cat rentals were added bike trails, sea kayaking, and nature-oriented tours. The West Coast has firmly put its foot down about wanton development. This makes it especially desirable for adventurers seeking a return to what those first intrepid fishermen, hunters, and sailors found.

      Largely gone are the untamed lands and rugged lifestyles that attracted adventurers a half-century ago. Development continually threatens some natural resources, but visitors can still find throughout the region areas and activities that retain the flavor and fervor of Florida's derring-do days.

      The People & Culture

      Western Florida has built its population in great part from tourists who came and never left. The result is a rich blend of cultures.

      The First Settlers

      The earliest tourists arrived before history books, probably first from Asia, later from South America and the Caribbean. The Calusa and Timucua Amerindians did not survive the next incursion of visitors. The Spanish eventually decimated their numbers with bows, arrows, and disease. Spanish influence persisted, and the area's oldest families have names such as Padilla and Menendez, familial survivors from a time when Cuban fishermen set up camps on the islands and Cuban cigar-makers migrated from Key West.

      Most of the latter settled in Tampa's Ybor City. Germans, Italians, Jews, and other nationalities followed to work the cigar factories, making Ybor City still today one of the region's most colorful ethnic enclaves. The district is known for its restaurants, where a Cuban sandwich or bowl of rice and beans are culinarily symbolic.

      Other early arrivals migrated from the north, among them the Seminole Amerindians, a branch of the Creek tribe, whose bloodlines reflected an intermingling of African and Spanish ancestry. The Seminole Wars forced them to Arkansas, except for those who took cover in the Everglades' forbidding wild lands. Seminoles and an offshoot tribe known as the Miccosukee still live in the Everglades and on tribal lands around Tampa. In the Everglades, many live in chickee huts, pole structures topped with intricately thatched roofs. The Native Americans subsist on fishing, farming, and tourism, selling their colorful weaving, and raking in the proceeds from bingo and gambling. The tribe runs casinos in Tampa, Miami, and Immokalee (in Collier County).

      Miccosukee children in the 1930s

      The Seminole Wars, and later the Civil War, further stocked the slowly growing population with American soldiers who fell in love with the pleasant climate and lush surroundings.

      FLORIDIOM: Settlers from Georgia and Alabama came to be known as 'Crackers,' a term often associated with the region's early cattle drivers, who 'cracked' their whips to herd wild cows. Others attribute the label to a Celtic word applied disparagingly to early Scotch-Irish plantation hands in the South. Whatever the

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