Southwest Florida Historical Society

08/23/2026

08/23/2026

Indian Shell Mound, Fort Myers (Beautiful Island).

Mel Smith found an old negative today of a Fort Myers Indian Shell Mound. She scanned it and I colorized it and we researched it. We just don't look at the subject; we look beyond that. This is what we came up with.

The bridge in the background turned out to be the clue. Another copy of this same scene was published and identified as the “Old railroad trestle at Beautiful Island.”

The Atlantic Coast Line railroad reached Fort Myers in 1904, crossing the Caloosahatchee in the Beautiful Island/Tice area.

Florida Memory also has a copy of this photograph, titled Indian shell mound at Fort Myers, Florida, and dates it to about 1909.

That gives us a much better idea of where this mound once stood.
It appears to have been at or near Beautiful Island, close to the early railroad crossing east of downtown Fort Myers.

Many of these ancient Native American shell mounds disappeared as their shell was removed for roads, fill and development.
This negative may preserve a Fort Myers landscape that has been gone for more than a century.

Sometimes one little detail solves the mystery. In this photograph, it was the bridge.

Joanne Iwinski Miller 2026

08/20/2026

More of the Harmon negatives with information about the image.
Matlacha — When It Was Still Old Florida.

Sometimes an old photograph shows much more than buildings and roads. It captures a landscape in the middle of becoming something new.

This wonderful aerial photograph of Matlacha was found among a collection of negatives donated by the Harmon Family to the Southwest Florida Historical Society. I recently colorized the image, and the added color really brings out just how different Matlacha once looked.

The photograph appears to date from around the 1940s era, when Matlacha was still a small fishing community surrounded by an enormous amount of untouched water and mangroves.

Matlacha's modern story really began in the 1920s.

When Lee County constructed the road and bridge connecting the mainland with Pine Island, dredges dug shell, sand and other material from Matlacha Pass. The material was used to create the roadway and bridge approaches. That dredging produced additional land that eventually became part of the little community known as Matlacha.

The first wooden bridge opened in 1927, and the area around it soon attracted fishermen and families looking for an inexpensive place to live.

Matlacha became known simply as “The Fill.”

By the 1930s and 1940s, small wooden houses, fishing camps, docks and businesses began appearing along Pine Island Road. Commercial fishing was an important part of everyday life. Boats and nets were everywhere, and the waters surrounding Matlacha provided fish, oysters and other seafood that helped families make a living.

During World War II, servicemen stationed at Page Field and Buckingham Army Airfield also discovered Matlacha. Many came out to fish from the old wooden bridge, helping it earns its famous reputation as the “Fishingest Bridge in the World.”

But what really catches my attention in this photograph is the land itself.

Look at the foreground.

Large areas have been dredged and filled, with long straight cuts extending into the water. It is a dramatic reminder that much of the Matlacha landscape we recognize today did not always exist in its present form. This photograph may have caught a land-development project while it was actually underway.

Then look beyond the dredging.

There is almost nothing there.

A narrow line of little houses follows Pine Island Road, while beyond them stretch miles of open water, mangrove islands and undeveloped shoreline. It is the Southwest Florida landscape that existed before the tremendous growth that would come during the following decades.

Matlacha was formally platted in 1947 as the Pine Island Fill Subdivision, an appropriate name considering how this unusual little community came into existence. The plat can be found in Plat Book 8 Page 86.

Today Matlacha is known for its colorful buildings, artists, fishermen and unmistakable Old Florida personality. But this photograph takes us back to an earlier Matlacha—when the houses were few, the mangroves seemed endless, and fishing wasn't a tourist attraction.

It was a way of life.

And thanks to the Harmon Family, who saved these old negatives and donated them to the Southwest Florida Historical Society, we are able to look down on Matlacha as it appeared generations ago.

Colorized from the original Harmon Family negative.

Joanne Iwinski Miller 2026

08/19/2026

What do YOU see when you look into these old photographs? 👀📸

Today at the Historical Society felt a little like a treasure hunt through time.

We gathered around old photographs of Bokeelia and St. James City, zooming in, pointing things out, and trying to pinpoint exactly what, and who, we were looking at. Then the stories started coming to life.

Robert Ballard was able to share memories and stories about specific houses pictured in these photographs from the early 1940s. Joanne uncovered documents that came from the old courthouse. And somewhere between the photographs, the stories, the detective work, and Helen’s lemon cookies 🍋🍪, it turned into one of those magical mornings that reminds us exactly why preserving local history matters.

Because sometimes a photograph is more than a photograph.

Someone recognizes that house.
Someone remembers that dock.
Someone knows who lived there.
Someone has the story we’re missing.

So take a good look at these photos. What do you recognize? What do you remember? What stories have been passed down in your family? Tell us in the comments, we want to hear them!

And better yet, come see us.

🏡 Southwest Florida Historical Society
🗓️ Open Wednesdays & Saturdays
⏰ 9:00 a.m.–Noon

Bring your stories. Bring your memories. And if you have old photographs, documents, maps, letters, or pieces of Southwest Florida history sitting in a box and you’re not sure what to do with them—bring them in.

We love visitors. We love donations. But most of all, we love putting the pieces of our history back together, one story at a time. ❤️

Who knows what we’ll discover next?

08/15/2026

These wonderful ladies came all the way from Englewood to visit the Little Yellow House today. They were fascinated by our "reading room!"

08/12/2026

1905 — A Gala Day in Fort Myers

While looking through the collections at the Southwest Florida Historical Society, Joanne Iwinski Miller, came across this wonderful old image and wanted to share it, along with a little information about the event it advertised. Written on the back of the photograph are the words: “Bay Street, Fort Myers.” Could that be the Heitman Brick building on the left?

Imagine Fort Myers in 1905, when a real estate auction wasn't simply a sale—it was an all-day community celebration complete with a military band, free carriage rides, a balloon ascension, a parachute jump, and even a high-diving dog!

On Tuesday, March 7, 1905, the Fitzsimmons Auction Company announced the sale of 150 building lots in W. H. Towles' (Evans) South-Side Addition. The advertisement promoted the property as being "within the residential future of Greater Fort Myers," and the lots were to be sold to the highest bidders.

Buyers didn't even need to have all the money up front. Terms called for one-fourth cash, with the balance payable in six, twelve and eighteen months at six percent interest.

But selling land was only part of the attraction.

The day was advertised as a "Gala Day of Fun & Fortune." A Fort Myers military band was scheduled to perform in the business district from 8:00 to 9:00 that morning. At 9:00, a grand parade of free carriages would leave the business center and carry prospective buyers to the auction.

Then came the entertainment.

Professor Bonansinga was advertised to ascend thousands of feet into the air in what was described as the largest hot-air balloon in the world—and then make a parachute leap back toward the ground.

As if that weren't enough excitement, "High Diving Dewey," billed as the highest-diving dog, was to make a 50-foot plunge from a mid-air pedestal during the sale.

There was even a free lot drawing. Everyone attending could enter, and according to the advertisement, "Somebody must draw it. Everybody can try."

At 9:30 a.m., Col. W. W. Bishop, described in the colorful language of the day as America's "200-pound bundle of wit, wind and wisdom," was scheduled to open the auction.

The advertisement gives us a wonderful glimpse into the optimism surrounding Fort Myers at the beginning of the 20th century. Promoters called the town "The Gateway to Eternal Paradise" and promised that its growth would bring increasing real-estate values and a golden future.

The sales pitch was certainly enthusiastic:

"The growth of a day will make Dollars for every Penny invested."

One sentence in the advertisement, however, is a stark reminder of the racial discrimination of the era. The promoters specifically advertised the event as "purely a white-man's sale." It is an uncomfortable phrase today, but an important part of the historical record, illustrating how segregation and racial exclusion were openly incorporated into real-estate promotion in early Fort Myers.

More than 120 years later, this old image and advertisement give us a fascinating window into Fort Myers during a time when the town was still small but promoters were already dreaming about its future.

In 1905 Fort Myers, you didn't just attend a real estate auction.

You brought the family, listened to the band, rode in a carriage, watched a balloon rise into the Florida sky, witnessed a parachute jump and a high-diving dog—and perhaps went home owning a little piece of the future of Fort Myers.

Joanne Iwinski Miller 2026