A History Lesson

Some Historical Background

Prehistoric Land and Sea
Southwest Florida was shaped and reshaped by centuries of flooding during the Ice Ages. Each time the polar ice sheets reformed and lowered the surrounding sea level, another layer of sand and shell was deposited, creating the limestone and sandy sediment that underlie much of Collier County today. The southern tip of Florida was last submerged about 25,000 years ago.

The American Serengetti
Rich fossil finds show that this region was once home to camels, mastodons, mammoths, and huge herds of bison, deer and wild horses. The animal population reached its peak during the Pleistocene Period about 10,000 years ago, when the number and variety of animals here approached that of the big game region of the African Serengetti. Gradual changes in climate and vegetation contributed to their extinction.

South Florida's First People
The first humans reached Southwest Florida at least 10,000 years ago, when the climate was colder and drier. Living in small, widely scattered bands, these first Floridians or Paleoindians, survived by hunting and fishing and by gathering wild plant foods. The earliest archaeological evidence of man in Collier County was discovered in 1980 at the Bay West Site, northeast of Naples.

The Calusa
Centuries before Columbus, Florida's lower Gulf coast was controlled by the powerful Calusa Indians. Once numbering as many as 10,000 people, the Calusa were ruled by a single chief, supported a nobility and strong military force, dug canals, built huge mounds of shell and earth for their temples and important buildings, and collected tribute from towns and villages reaching all the way across southern Florida to the Atlantic. Highly skilled Calusa artisans also created elaborate masks and woodcarvings for religious and ceremonial purposes, such as those discovered by Frank Hamilton Cushing on Marco Island in 1895.

European Arrival
Juan Ponce de Leon discovered and claimed Florida for Spain in 1513 and led the first recorded European exploration of the Gulf coast. He returned to colonize Southwest Florida in1521, but was mortally wounded by Calusa warriors. Other Spanish explorers attempted the conquest of Florida over the next forty years. The expeditions failed, but decades of warfare, enslavement and runaway epidemics of European diseases destroyed the Calusa and their culture.

The Seminoles
By the early 1700's, small bands of Creek Indians from Georgia and Alabama began making their way into Florida. Eventually, these breakaway groups of Indians joined with escaped black slaves and refugees from other tribes to forge a new identity as the Seminole. Ongoing disputes and skirmishes with white settlers eventually led to Government pressure to move the Seminoles to reservations west of the Mississippi River.

The Seminole Wars
Risking death over deportation, vastly outnumbered Seminole war parties fought the U.S. Army to a stalemate in the longest, bloodiest and most expensive Indian war in U.S. history. A chain of forts along the fringes of Collier County were reactivated when a third and final fight with the Seminoles broke out in 1855. The few surviving Seminoles found refuge deep in the Everglades and Big Cypress Swamp, where they developed a culture uniquely suited to the climate and terrain of South Florida.

Life on the Florida Frontier
Southwest Florida remained virtually uninhabited until after the Civil War when handfuls of farmers and squatters began making their way south in mule wagons, oxcarts or sailboats. Early pioneers fished and hunted for a living, raised crops of cabbage, peppers, tomatoes and pineapples, dug clams, made charcoal, sold bird plumes, and trapped otters and alligators for their pelts and hides. Trading posts started by Ted Smallwood on Chokoloskee Island and George Storter at Everglades City became important gathering places for the few isolated settlers and Indians. By the late 1880's, Naples and Marco Island were already gaining popularity as winter resorts for wealthy Northerners and sportsmen.

The Tropical Range
Cattle ranching is one of Collier County's oldest industries. By the early 1900's, ranchers like Bob Roberts, Jehu Whidden and Robert Carson were grazing herds of scrub cattle on the open prairies around Immokalee. Railroads improved the access to market in the 1920's and helped raise the County's beef cattle industry to national importance by the end of World War II.

Only Yesterday
World War II introduced hundreds of aircraft servicemen to Naples and Collier County when the U.S. Army Air Field (now Naples Airport) was activated in 1943 to train combat pilots. At one point, several hundred men and 53 aircraft were assigned to the Naples base. Many veterans returned after the war as prospective home buyers and businessmen. A direct hit by Hurricane Donna in 1960, actually stimulated Naples' growth with an infusion of insurance money and loans.

Modern Collier County

In the short span of thirty years, the number of County residents swelled from 6,488 in 1950, to a phenomenal 85,000 by 1980. The County seat was transferred from Everglades City to East Naples in 1962, and signaled a new era of sustained growth in agriculture, tourism, and real estate that have made Collier County one of the fastest developing areas in the nation.

Barron Collier
Born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1873, Collier's talent and keen eye for opportunity led him into a successful street lighting business and ultimately, into printing and advertising. In just ten years, by the age of 26, he had amassed his first million by selling advertising card franchises to the nation's trolley, train and subway lines. Based in New York City, Collier's Consolidated Street Railway Advertising Company led the market in mass transit advertising with affiliates in over 70 American Cities, Canada, and Cuba. By the 1920s, his multiple business interests included shipping, motor freight, hotels and spas, utilities and newspapers.

Remote Southwest Florida first drew Collier's notice in 1911 and over the next decade he gradually accumulated over a million acres of sprawling, untouched wilderness - investing millions of dollars more to transform and develop the land.

"Frankly, I was fascinated with Florida and swept off my feet by what I saw and felt," Collier once explained. "It was a wonderland with a magic climate, set in a frame of golden sunshine."

Acting on Collier's personal pledge to finish the highway between Tampa and Miami, the Florida State Legislature created Collier County on May 8, 1923, with Everglades (later Everglades City) as the County seat. By 1928, the Tamiami Trail was completed, along with countless other essential services to bring new vitality and home seekers to the region.

A man of tremendous energy, Barron Collier was also instrumental in the national Boy Scout movement. He served as Special Deputy Commissioner for Public Safety in New York, and is credited with the introduction of white and yellow traffic-divider lines on highways. He was decorated by nine foreign governments and was a founding member of INTERPOL, the International World Police.

Barron Collier died in 1939, the state's largest landowner, at the age of 66, too soon to see his unshakable dream for Collier County fulfilled.

"The tomorrow of Florida is dawning," he wrote in 1925. "In its soft light we see the forms of men literally hurling back the wilderness, draining large tracts, building homes, planting great gardens and orchards. Soon will come the blaze of the full mid-day. Picture, if you can, the scene as it will be then!"

Courtesy of the Collier County Museum
Please visit them at www.colliermuseum.com