“The City of Palms”
FORT MYERS
In the late 1800s, Tootie McGregor and Thomas & Mina Edison began the beautification of Fort Myers. Imported Royal Palms were planted along Riverside Drive, later renamed McGregor Boulevard. These magnificent Royal Palms, some towering at 75 feet, give the City of Palms its nickname. Incorporated in 1886, Fort Myers is the center of a popular tourist area in Southwest Florida and the seat of Lee County. It is located about 120 miles south of Tampa at the meeting point of the Gulf of Mexico and the Caloosahatchee River. Fort Myers was the frequent winter home of Thomas Edison and is the current home of the Boston Red Sox and Minnesota Twins spring training camps. The first known resident of what is now Fort Myers was Manuel Gonzalez, a Spaniard from the province of Asturias, who came via Cuba in the 19th century. Fort Myers, built in 1850 as a military fort to fend off Seminole Indians that were massacring the area’s few settlers, was named after Col. Abraham C. Myers, who was stationed in Florida for seven years and was the son-in-law of the fort’s establisher and commander. In 1858, after years of elusive battle, Chief Billy Bowlegs and his warriors were persuaded to surrender and move west, and the fort was abandoned. Billy’s Creek, which flows into the Caloosahatchee River and runs between The Beau Rivage Condominiums and Alta Mar, was named after a temporary camp where Billy Bowlegs and his men awaited ships to take them west. The fort was abandoned until 1863 when a small number of Federal troops re-occupied the fort during the Civil War. In 1865 the fort was attacked unsuccessfully by a very small group of Confederates. After the war, the fort was again deserted. The first settlers arrived in 1866, but it wasn’t until 1882 when the city experienced a significant influx of settlers. By 1885, when Fort Myers was incorporated, it was the second largest city only to Tampa on Florida’s west coast south of Cedar Key - even larger than Clearwater and Sarasota, also growing cities at the time. Fort Myers first became a nationally known winter resort with the building of The Royal Palm Hotel in 1898. The real spark of the city’s growth was the construction of the Tamiami Trail Bridge built across the Caloosahatchee River in 1924. After the bridge’s construction, the city experienced its first real estate boom and many subdivisions sprouted around the city.The Florida of days long past, with unspoiled white sand beaches, exotic wildlife and lush subtropical foliage, still can be found on The Beaches of Fort Myers and Sanibel in southwest Florida. Known as Florida’s tropical island getaway, this paradise is a favorite vacation spot because of its feel of old Florida that no longer exists in many areas. In addition to the beautiful natural environment, active travelers are pleased to find an abundance of golf, tennis and watersports, as well as some unusual attractions. Lee County embraces nine distinct areas, each with its own unique character. Best known are Sanibel and Captiva islands, connected to the mainland by an alluring three-mile-long causeway and, to each other, by a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it bridge at Blind Pass.
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