This article begins an ongoing series we’ve dubbed “Managing Growth.” We’ll attempt to put our growth in historical perspective by examining the roots of Southwest Florida’s popularity. We’ll then continue with an analysis of the effects of growth — both positive and negative. We’ll also explore possible solutions to the thorny problems that threaten our quality of life.

We look forward to your feedback as we track the past, present and future of our burgeoning metropolis. As optimists, we envision a large regional community in 2010 and 2020 that has come to grips with growth — and has avoided the pitfalls of so many similar communities.

At the start of the 20th Century, visitors to Southwest Florida were greeted by a very different landscape than those arriving today. No longer are cattle seen being driven down Summerlin Road in Fort Myers on their way to Punta Rassa for export to Cuba. No longer do you see livestock freely roaming throughout the Naples area. From cow town to boom town, how did we come so far so fast?

Is there a single defining moment in our regional history that can be credited with sparking the modern evolution of Southwest Florida? Doubtful. But, topping the list of catalysts that changed the course of history for sister counties Lee and Collier is a 264-mile stretch of asphalt known as the Tamiami Trail.

In the Beginning was the Fishing and the Fame

Long before the idea for a road spanning the southern tip of Florida was ever conceived, Southwest Florida was experiencing a slow, but steady, growth in population. Enticing wealthy tourists to South Florida was the discovery in March 1885 that the majestic silver king, or tarpon, could be caught on a rod and reel.

The following year famed inventor Thomas Alva Edison decided to make “Seminole Lodge” in Fort Myers his winter home. And with Edison’s move to the Gulf Coast came numerous other wealthy northerners searching for a warm nesting place to escape the cold winters. The very things that Edison found so appealing about Southwest Florida, explains Stan Mulford, historian, researcher and co-author of “Images of America: Fort Myers,” lured these other seasonal residents to Fort Myers and nearby Naples: “friendly people, the isolation of the area and the warm, dry weather.” Catering to this elite winter clientele, the Naples Hotel quickly gained a reputation as a favorite winter resort and was host to numerous celebrities in the early 1930s and ’40s, including Gary Cooper, Heddy Lamarr and Greta Garbo.

Even with the big name appeal of famous winter residents and world-famous backcountry fishing, the southwest portion of Florida was still slow to develop, largely due to the fact that there was no regional transportation network. Until 1904 when the Atlantic Coastline Railroad linked Southwest Florida with the national railroad network, access to the area was limited to travel by boat or across primitive roads. To travel to Naples meant traversing a dirt trail from Fort Myers, which was connected to the rest of the world via a bridge at Olga.

A man with a Plan

In 1923 barely a mile of highway existed in what is now Collier County and there were less than a thousand people living there to use it. But a streetcar advertising magnate by the name of Barron Gift Collier planned on changing that. After visiting Useppa Island in 1911, Collier was so impressed with the area that he purchased more than one million acres of swampland in what was then southern Lee County, including most of Naples. Realizing that if there were to be any chance of developing this land that he would need to make it easily accessible, Collier was disgusted when commissioners in far off Fort Myers voted to only build 20 miles worth of roads throughout the southern part of the county.

At the same time that Collier was battling the local government, the state had run out of funding for a road project designed to link Southwest Florida with the rest of the state. The idea for a highway connecting Tampa to Miami is said to have originated with Dade County tax assessor Capt. J.F. Jaudon in 1915. Within one year of proposing the idea to government officials, construction of the Tamiami Trail (a portmanteau word created from the names of the cities at each end of the road) had begun in Lee and Dade counties, with each county contributing approximately $175,000 to the project. World War I stopped construction of the road on both sides of the state, but work resumed once the war was over. By 1921 however, road construction was at a complete halt due to a lack of funding. The final 60 miles, cutting straight through the heart of the Everglades, and Collier’s property, were left unfinished.

These two elements, Collier’s frustration with the local government and the partially finished Tamiami Trail, came together thirty-six years after the birth of Lee County, resulting in the creation of yet another county when Collier made the state an offer it couldn’t refuse. He promised the state that he would pay for the completion of the stalled road project through his property in exchange for his own county, an exchange that would cost Collier millions of dollars. And so, on May 8, 1923, the 19th Regular Session of the State Legislature officially created Florida’s 62nd county, named after Collier himself. Said Collier at the time, “I am anxious to do some big developing in Collier County; I felt that I could do it much better with a friendly administration.”

If You Build it, They Will Come ... Eventually

Taking 13 years and anywhere from $6 million and $16 million, according to modern day reports, to complete, the Tamiami Trail was heralded as “the eighth wonder of the world.” Supplying a large portion of those needed millions was Collier, a man determined to accomplish a feat many deemed impossible. Constructing a roadbed through muck, cypress stands, hammocks, sawgrass and water, all resting on a sub-floor of solid limestone, made Florida the nation’s third leading consumer of dynamite by 1926. Sixty bridges were constructed in Collier County alone to complete the Trail. Taking more than a decade to build, millions of dollars more than expected, and weathering the Florida recession of the 1920s, the project was finally complete. On April 24, 1928, Collier kicked off two days of festivities to celebrate the opening of the 264-mile Tamiami Trail. At the time, the combined population of Lee and Collier Counties was just under 18,000.

Despite the magnitude of the accomplishment, the creation of the intrastate thoroughfare was slow to create the boom in Southwest Florida for which those like Collier had hoped. For years after its opening, the Trail remained a lonely stretch of barren highway with tourism virtually non-existent due to an economic depression and world war. In 1940, the population of our region wasn’t much greater than in the Trail’s inaugural year, with more than 20,000 people calling Southwest Florida home. Even five years after WWII, the 1950s began with just 27,000 residents.

By the mid ’50s, the Trail established itself as an alternative route to and from Florida’s east coast. Finally, the rest of the world began to discover what men like Collier and Edison, 50 years before, had found so enchanting about our region. Population skyrocketed — doubling between 1950 and 1960, and again from 1960 to 1970 — as the Trail came into its own. By the end of the 1960s, our population was well over 140,000 people. That was just the beginning.

From Backwater to Boomtown

When the Tamiami Trail was conceived and built, it took visionaries like Collier to see it through, in anticipation of its eventual accelerating effect on growth. The growth initially driven by the creation of a road stretching from U.S. 1 in Miami to State Road 80 in Tampa continues to pick up speed.

Our population has grown by more than 600,000 in the last 30 years — almost quadrupling. In 2000, more than two million travelers from around the globe came to Southwest Florida. The growth that Collier envisioned for his land has occurred.

In 1980s and 1990s, the impact of the Tamiami Trail was marginalized by a series of other growth factors — the latest of which is the newly opened Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa, which will lure thousands more affluent visitors annually.

Waves of new residents are arriving every month, and who can blame them? The same elements of economic success that brought the Calusa and the Colliers to our region — sunshine, fertile soil, warm water, sandy beaches, abundant fishing and wildlife — continue to draw people to Southwest Florida today. And, it would appear that there is no stopping them.

Managing Growth is the Key; Learning by Example

How are we equipped to deal with the challenges that this rapid growth presents? How do we plan on protecting our quality of life, economic stability and regional longevity? As Southwest Florida plots a course for sustainable growth, it is useful to learn from the efforts of other regions with similar growing pains. Growth management plans being implemented in enlightened regions can provide us with positive role models and recipes for our own success. We can also learn from bad examples.

Next month we’ll begin with a look at success stories and examine how smart growth planning can mitigate the problems that inevitably accompany explosive population growth.

Kristin Nail is a freelance writer and visiting instructor at Florida Gulf Coast University.