FLORIDA HISTORY

In January, the speaker for Estero Island Historic Society’s public meeting will be Martha Bireda, director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County. Ms. Bireda is the great-granddaughter of Queen Evans Andrews, a pioneer who came to Punta Gorda in 1897 from Charleston, South Carolina. She will share stories of the Gullah culture and of her visits with the Gullah people who live on James and Johns Islands. Having just visited the Georgia and South Carolina Coasts, I thought this might be a good time to do a bit of research into the Gullah culture in anticipation of our January meeting.

Repairing the St. Pete pier after the storm. Florida Archives. As we prepare to run from another hurricane, it might be helpful to reflect upon the 1921 “Tampa Bay” hurricane which hit the Tarpon Springs/Tampa area on October 28, 1921 This was the first major storm to hit the Tampa area since the “Great Gale” of 1848. We can draw a few parallels between this hurricane and what we are now facing with Milton. In 1921, the weather forecasting was not what it is today; rather, the forecast was based on observation sites which reported breezy and cloudy conditions around a low pressure system that was organizing off the coast of Honduras on October 20 and 21. By October 22 and 23, the area of low pressure began to intensify. Winds reached tropical storm force at the observation sites. The sites reported thunderstorms and cloudiness across the Caribbean. 

Searching for survivors on Upper Matecumbe Key after the storm. Photo Credit: Creative Commons In the late summer of 1935, the citizens of the Florida Keys were in the depths of the Great Depression. Key West, once a prosperous port city, had declared bankruptcy. Residents were struggling to live on an average monthly income of $7. The city needed a plan to survive so it was decided to rehab the old buildings and re-create Key West as a tourist destination. The government saw this as a way to help the jobless World War I veterans who had been affected by the economic downturn. The vets would be paid $30 a month plus free room and board to come to the Keys and build the bridges and roads that would be needed to support the Key West plan. The men were housed in flimsy shacks built on the shoreline. Residents of the Keys warned that this housing would never survive a hurricane, but their warnings were not heeded. The government plan in case of a storm was to send a special train from Miami to evacuate the vets if a storm approached. Like many plans, this one was not thought through very well. The railroad officials insisted that they would need several hours of lead time to get a train ready and on its way to the Keys.  It was in late August 1935 that a tropical wave came off the coast of Africa heading across the Atlantic towards the Caribbean. At this time, predicting storms was not a science. With no satellite images or hurricane hunter planes, meteorologists were pretty much shooting in the dark with only a newly developed radar to help them predict when or where a storm would hit.

Who was Jack DeLysle? I had been reading about him in different articles as I was doing research on the early days on the island. I had come up empty except for one cryptic note I found that he “left the island under mysterious circumstances.” Yesterday, I was going through copies of the Sand Paper that were donated to the historic society and found an article by Jean Matthews that was about Jack DeLysle. This is what I learned about the mystery man who played a pivotal role in the early development of the island. Jack and his brother, John, first appeared in Southwest Florida after their ship ran aground at the moth of Gordon’s Pass. When Sheriff Frank Tippins arrived to investigate the incident, he found 320 boxes of “Soap” that turned out to be whiskey. The brothers had apparently picked up the moonshine in Alabama and sailed to Tampa, then Key West, and finally to Cuba. When they returned to Florida, they were caught in a storm and the ship was wrecked. “Captain” Jack DeLysle claimed he was in the British Army; however, he and John were arrested and turned over to the Feds. Both men were found innocent by a jury in Tampa and Jack returned to Fort Myers where he was into many different endeavors. Although he wrote poetry that he published in the local paper, DeLysle is best known for his efforts to raise money to build a bridge to Fort Myers Beach. He joined the Crescent Bridge Road Company where he met E.E. Damkohler. Damkohler was trying to raise money to build a road from Miner’s Corner to the Island. DeLysle saw potential in Crescent Beach ( old name for Fort Myers Beach)being developed into a tourist mecca like Miami Beach. He purchased property in Case Subdivision and built the Seminole Sands Casino. DeLysle’s casino had a game room with tables and slot machines, changing rooms, a dance pavilion, and a restaurant.

Did Al Capone spend a week on Fort Myers Beach back in 1929 or 1930? According to Jean Matthew, Capone and some of his lawyers may have stayed at the home of Dr. Baker Whisnant in Seminole Park. The group consisted of two attorneys and their families, including their children, and of course, Mrs. and Mrs. Capone. Matthews states that the two lawyers who were with Capone rented a beach cottage at the same time they rented the home in Fort Myers. Rumors began spreading around town that Capone and his gang had been seen hanging round in downtown Fort Myers. The cook who worked at the Seminole Park house while the gang was staying there stated that every morning a strange man would appear and eat breakfast at the house, arriving from the beach. Was this mysterious stranger really the infamous Al Capone? The cook’s description of the man sounded like Capone who also had a deep scar on the left side of his face. The strange man never went out during the day. He would stay home and play with the children until evening when he would leave. Other people in town also recall this stranger who may have been the famous gangster. A young gas station attendant who was working at the Standard Oil station on McGregor waited on the stranger. When he was caught staring at the gangster, Capone is reported to have told him, “You know who I am, but kept it under your hat.” Mrs. Whisnant, the owner of the Seminole Park home, said that the group acted strange from the beginning. They didn’t register at a hotel. They immediately sought out the realtor who was in charge of the rental and were brought to the home immediately. They took only a brief time to look over the house before asking to move in in immediately. They didn’t want a phone. They asked about the mail but insisted that their business was all transacted by telegraph. When the group left, and the owner was cleaning up her house, she found many cases of empty liquor bottles. The residents of Seminole Park told her that the renters were not very friendly and stayed to themselves.  After reading this in the Sandpaper, I decided to do a bit more research to get to the truth about Al Capone’s visit to Southwest Florida.

The Tip Top was a popular hangout for teens back in the day.

As we are all still recovering from Hurricane Ian, the news from NOAA that was released this week is a bit intimidating. Forecasters estimate 17- 25 named storms this season with 8-13 reaching hurricane strength. Of these, forecasters predict that 4-7 would be considered “major.” This is not great news, and it gets worse. Florida has a 96% chance of being impacted by one or more of these named storms. If we look at only hurricanes, the probability of a hurricane hitting the sunshine state drops to 75%. This drops even more to 44% when we look only at a ‘major’ hurricane hitting our state.

While doing research for Lost Icons, I came across a quote in the News-Press that I have cited several times in other articles and presentations. Written in the late 1970s, this quote seems to bring the past and the future together quite nicely: “Nobody really wants to stop progress, but there is an increasing awareness that the island is in danger of becoming a polluted paradise.” Over fifty years ago, the paper stated that Fort Myers Beach was at a crossroads. The 70s were a time of rapid, uncontrolled development with over 68 condos being developed in a single decade. This led residents to vote to incorporate the town so we could control our own destiny and stop the over-development of our island. The newly born town elected its first town council who worked very hard to create a comp plan that would guide our development and preserve our island lifestyle. This plan was completed in 1995 and had served us well until Hurricane Ian damaged every building on the island. Now that we are in the rebuilding mode, we are once again at a crossroads: Do we stick to the comp plan and turn down the developers who want to build higher and bigger? So far, the council has been carefully considering all arguments and is making logical decisions trying to keep as close to the comp plan as possible. The council and residents need to tread carefully to make sure, in our efforts to build back, we spend time anticipating the unintended consequences of building back bigger. One very good example of this is the recent attempt of two legislators to take back 225 acres that are part of the Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve. (More on this in another post). This was not the first time our beautiful back bay was threatened. Let’s go back to the 1960s when a group of concerned residents decided to take action to preserve the beauty of our back bay. Back to the Future

Did WC Zimmerman Discover a Lost Treasure on What is Now San Carlos Island?  Although I really enjoy researching and writing about local history, I am also a sucker for local legends and lore, so when I was given an article taken from a 1897 issue of a newspaper called Fisherman and Farmer, I knew I had to do a deeper dive.

I have been reading recently about the plan to merge the FMB Fire Department with Bonita. I am by no means an expert on how or if this would be a money saving move, but I do know that the FMB Fire Department has been the pride of our island since 1949 when the Beach Volunteer Fire Department was born at “Jenk’s Bar” on San Carlos Island. Twenty-two men attended the banquet meeting. Earl Howie was the first Fire Chief, and J. Travis Cowart was elected Fire Captain. This was the beginning. Prior to this time, there was no established fire department on the island, and the closest fire apparatus was 20 miles away in Fort Myers. The information in this article comes from a small booklet written by former Chief John McCarthy called simply “The History of the Fort Myers Beach Fire Department.”  After raising funds from the island residents, the new department purchased a small two-wheeled spray pump, tank, and trailer that was pulled by a borrowed jeep (McCarthy). These were housed at Red Coconut. Residents could call the department by dialing 2541, a precursor to 911. In April 1950, an old international war-surplus fire/rescue crash truck was purchased. This was a step up from the original truck and was the first real fire apparatus that the department owned. It lasted until May 1964 when it was sold to Leigh Acres Volunteer Fire Department.

Yesterday I was surfing the Internet, and I came across an article about haunted restaurants. This article mentioned the Whale (formerly the Beached Whale and before that the Mermaid Club) as being haunted by the ghosts of Jim and Mary Galloway (I covered their murder in an earlier posting). Suddenly, I remembered reading about another haunted restaurant on the island: the Holmes House. This led me down a rabbit hole as I got caught up in trying to learn more about the ghost that was supposed to be the daughter of the restaurant owner who had died (I can’t remember how she was supposed to have died). Unfortunately, I came up empty on the ghost story, but I did learn some interesting facts about this lost icon of Fort Myers Beach.