Fort Myers History

February 20th is the most important date in the history of Fort Myers.

This week marks 161 years since Union and Confederate troops met in The Battle of Fort Myers.It was one of the 10,000 places where the Civil War was fought, to paraphrase the opening narration in Ken Burns' epic PBS-TV series: The Civil War.

Over the holidays, the Fort Myers Mural Society installed murals on the obelisks flanking Edwards Avenue outside the Luminary Hotel. One recognizes Manuel A. Gonzalez; the other, Harvie Heitman.

The city of Fort Myers recently celebrated the grand reopening of Roberto Clemente Park.

The Hall of 50 States sits like a battered, beaten and starved stray dog waiting for a new owner to find him and take him home. It looks like a new owner finally has arrived. Fort Myers City Council, at a workshop this week, gave their unofficial approval to Jim Becker and his plans to refurbish the nearly 100-year-old building on Edwards Drive in downtown.

After nine years and three developers failed to draw up plans for the site, the Fort Myers Community Redevelopment Agency decided to take the lead on the McCollum Hall historic preservation and redevelopment project in early August. Since then, the agency has worked to engage the community, aiming to hear what people want for the building’s future and to deliver on those desires once and for all, precisely what the Sept. 30 community engagement session tried to accomplish.

Turning historic McCollum Hall in Fort Myers into a mixed-use development with co-working space and a restaurant is not only commercially viable but represents an opportunity for cultural and community revitalization.That was one of the findings from a feasibility analysis done with the help of AI by the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency. The results will be discussed at Wednesday’s Fort Myers CRA meeting.

In this installment from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour visit to Fort Myers in Feb. 2024, lifelong friends Karen Hurst and Cathy Goodacre Smith share childhood memories of growing up on Fort Myers Beach in the 1950s and 60s.

As we commemorate Native American History Month, we turn our attention to a small city in Southwest Florida. From treaties and broken promises to surprising acts of cooperation, the story of Fort Myers offers a lens into the complex history of the Seminole Wars and their lasting impact.

Calusa Waterkeeper will explain the current water conditions, outline health risks, and share tips about the drainage creek, which measures Enterococcus levels 21 times higher than Florida allows.