A Business Timeline

By: Rick Compton, S. Alison Chabonais and Kathleen McNamara

It's not easy to envision the days when Southwest Florida was little more than wetlands, cypress hammocks, natural beaches and wildlife. But that's what the earliest entrepreneurs had to work with back before condominiums, golf courses, shopping malls, gas stations and even roadways came to town.

In all truth, Southwest Florida's business history includes the earliest Native Americans, who fished regional waters and conducted early forms of trade. We also can't exclude European explorers, who likely gazed upon our incredible beachfronts and held the same sense of amazement that new tourists experience when they first enter our region.

Our timeline below, however, begins in 1850, in the midst of the Seminole War. The US Government built Fort Myers on a clearing along the banks of the Caloosahatchee River, starting what would become a modern-day city ...

1850

Fort Myers is born and named after Lieut. Col. Abraham C. Myers, a quartermaster and the suitor the daughter of Gen. Twiggs.

1858

Fort Myers is abandoned at the end of the Third Seminole Indian War.

1863

The Cattle Guard was formed as a special, draft-exempt militia of 496 men to protect the Confederacy Southwest Florida's cattle herds from Union raids out of Federalist forts at Punta Rassa and Fort Myers. Even so, more than 4500 head were rustled and shipped north.

1864

Punta Rassa, the only Union base in peninsular Florida, instituted a blockade to stop shipment of cattle to Confederate forces.

Fort Myers is reoccupied by Union Forces, to serve as base for cattle raids into local herds.

1865

Fort Myers was decommissioned, and Major James Evans of the Confederacy reinstated his title issued under the Florida Homestead Act.

1866

Manuel Gonzalez, Joseph Vivas and John Weatherford arrive as Fort Myers's first civilian settlers.

1868

Dr. Howell T. Lykes, father of the now-well-known Lykes Brothers, started cattle farming.

Captain W.T. Bill Collier (no relation to Barron Collier) arrives on Marco Island and forms a small settlement on the island's north tip.

1873

Major James Evans paid $1.25 per acre for 140 acres to gain clear title to Fort Myers. He was aided by the Hendry Family.

1876

The first year-round residents arrive in Naples.

1880

Regular trade boats ply the waters between Marco and Key West.

1881

The largest cattle herd, numbering 17,000, wandered the free range bearing the Hendry family brand.

1883

An undersea telegraph line from Havana terminated at Punta Rassa.

Everglade (now Everglades City) is founded by August Storter.

1884

The Fort Myers Press newspaper opens with an advertising rate of $1000 for a one- column ad for one year.

1885

Fort Myers begins incorporation process, completed in 1886.

Florida state census counts 349 people in Fort Myers.

Thomas Edison arrives in Fort Myers.

1886

First seasonal residents arrive in Naples.

1887

Thomas Edison turns on the electric lights on his Fort Myers estate for the first time.

Lee County was formed from the former Monroe County and was the bigger of the two and the largest county in the United States.

Molasses produces $50,000 in revenue, making cane second only to cattle. Then-current wisdom calculated that molasses revenues were to cover all production costs and refined sugar revenues were the profits.

1888

The Naples Company purchases 8700 acres at $1.50 each from Florida Land Company under Walter Disston, but Disston is unable to convey a clear title.

1889

W.P Gardner opens Seminole Canning in Lee County to process fruits and vegetables.

1890

W.N. Haldeman founds Naples and buys The Naples Company at a sheriff's sale for $50,000 (already holding a $45,000 mortgage on it). The purchase includes Naples Hotel with furniture and fixtures, docks, a sloop, a steamship and 8600 acres.

Gilmer Heitman wins the telephone franchise from Fort Myers City Commission and has 20 subscribers by February.

There was no bank in Lee County and cattle, selling between $6 and $14 dollars a head, were the only collateral accepted by private lenders.

William and Harriet Matthews opened a tourist hotel on Sanibel Island. Casa Ybel was hosting guests also.

1891

Chokoloskee, the link between coastal Southwest Florida, the Ten Thousand Islands, The Everglades and Cuba establishes a post office.

1892

The Rod & Gun Club of Everglades City is opened.

1894

The Koreshans, a religious order from Chicago, arrive in Estero.

Citrus freeze. Temperatures dropped to 24 degrees in the coldest areas. growers in the northern part of the state relocated many groves to Lee County causing a 260 percent increase in shipments the following year, and a 180 percent additional increase the next.

1896

The Marco Inn is opened by Captain Bill Collier.

1897

The Fort Myers Press merges with The Tropical News to become The Fort Myers News-Press.

The Boca Grande Railroad is chartered, primarily to carry phosphate.

1898

Fort Myers receives electric utility service.

1900

Captain Bill Collier reports 1500 orange trees and 5000 coconut trees producing fruit on Marco.

Federal census counts 943 Fort Myers residents.

1902

Florida Southern railway and Desoto Lee and Gulf Railways haul lumber, cattle and phosphate over 50 miles of tracks.

Atlantic Coast Lines purchase the Plant (Rail) System for $25 million and immediately fire all female employees.

1903

Drainage efforts begin on the Everglades. Reporters foresaw "pumps kept going night and day to lift fresh water over the dikes into salt water as Holland has done for more than 2000 years and will continue to do for two million more." (Florida In The Making, page 225)

Florida Southern Company completes its rail line form Punta Gorda to Fort Myers.

The Koreshans, a religious order from Chicago, built a sawmill.

1904

First cannery appears at Caxambas on Marco Island.

Mrs. J. E. Hendry drives last spike of the Fort Myers extension of the Atlantic Coast Line.

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad opens a small wooden depot in Fort Myers.

Napoleon Broward is elected Governor of Florida on a platform of draining the Everglades.

1906

The Smallwood Store in Chokoloskee is founded.

1908

Captain Bill Collier digs clams commercially in 12 feet of water with his own invention, a clam dredge.

1910

With only 12 automobiles in Lee County, a visionary Ben King opens the first auto garage and gasoline station.

Federal census counts 2,463 Fort Myers residents, a 10-year increase of 161 percent.

1911

Fort Myers is incorporated.

200 brick homes are built in Fort Myers.

The Doxsee family opens a cannery on Marco.

Boca Grande was established as the American Agricultural Chemical Company's phosphate loading port, where a 24-inch wide conveyor belt driven by a five boiler power house with a 150-foot smokestack moved phosphate from railcars to ships.

Barron Collier arrives in Southwest Florida and buys Useppa Island for $100,000.

1912

Bonita Springs is created from the town of Survey, and Surveyor's Creek is renamed Imperial River.

1913

The Tarpon House Hotel at Punta Rassa is destroyed by fire.

Peter Tonnelier of Michigan develops four hotels, the Ritz Theatre and the Patio De Leon.

1914

Agricultural production tops $84 million, an increase of more than $27 million in two years.

E.W. Crayton organizes the Naples Improvement Company.

1915

Robb & Stucky opens its first store on Fort Myers's Main Street.

Fort Myers purchases its first motorized fire truck, a 750-gallon-per-minute pumper.

The Tamiami Trail was conceived and bonds were approved for its construction between Naples and Fort Myers.

Fort Myers streets get asphalt/shell paving.

McGregor Boulevard is built, with half the road funded by the estate of well-known winter resident Tudi McGregor.

1916

Lee Memorial Hospital opens.

1917

Citrus freeze. Temperatures dropped to 27 degrees. Since there were no processing plants for turning freeze-damaged oranges into juice, 1.5 million boxes were lost statewide.

1921

Barron Collier makes first land purchase in Collier County-to-be.

1922

Barron Collier buys out August Storter's Everglade Rod & Gun Club and makes it the center of his operations.

Barron Collier has acquired all of Marco Island except Capt. Bill Collier's town site.

John S. Jones finances Naples's electric plant.

1923

The Fort Myers Municipal Gas plant is approved by the city commission at a cost of $29.6 million

1923

Collier and Hendry Counties were formed, and Collier was named due to Barron Collier promising to build the Tamiami Trail through his holdings.

Everglade becomes Everglades City and is made the Collier County seat. The town is divided into tow parts: Port Dupont to the north, an industrial site with a machine shop that made parts for the equipment working on the Tamiami Trail; and Everglades City to the south, a residential neighborhood.

Bank of Everglades opens.

The total assessed value of Collier County property is $1.653 million.

1924

Lee County is shipping 13,000 crates of guava jelly a year.

Atlantic Coast Line Railroad opens a new permanent stucco depot with 10 out buildings in Fort Myers.

Although it had no roads to the outside world, Everglades City receives a passenger trolley on one barge, and 400 tons of 90-pound rails on another.

J.W. Williams built the Slater mill to ship an average of $1.8 million of lumber per year logged from its 102,000 acres.

A $10,000 bond is sought and granted to improve Gilmer Heitman's Lee County Telephone System.

Barron Collier buys the Lee County Telephone System.

The Fort Myers-to-Punta Gorda section of the Tamiami Trail was completed including a bridge over the Caloosahatchee promoted by the Henderson and Franklin Law Firm.

1925

State census counts 1256 people in Collier County.

The Marco War, a rumor of gun battles, circulated an inflated story about Barron Collier acquiring land titles form homeowners on Marco Island.

Lee County Agriculture produced 176,900 crates of peppers; 156,450 crates of tomatoes; and 109,720 crates of cucumbers. Its 390,000 citrus trees produced $2.8 million in revenue and production ranked it 6.67 percent higher per acre than any other Florida county.