City of Cape Coral history

In 1822, Florida became an organized territory and settlers poured in along with runaway slaves who were harbored by Seminoles.

Redfish Point in today’s Cape Coral, was the site of the Massacre of Harney’s Point during the Second Seminole War in 1839.

Later on, the land was patented to Florida, when Florida became a state in 1845.

Seminole attacks against United States forces and the US policy of Indian Removal ultimately reduced the Seminole population from 5,000 to a small remnant of 200 people by 1858 (Weisman 203). It is from this remnant that today’s Seminole people are descended.

One of these individuals was Franklin Miles of Miles Laboratories and of Alka Seltzer fame, who bought some of the land in 1910.

When the Rosen brothers purchased Red Fish Point in 1956, today’s Cape Coral was owned by a succession of lumber and cattle companies including the Atlantic Gulf Coast Canal and Okeechobee Land Company, the J.W. McWilliams Company, and the Matlacha Cattle Company (Zeiss 98-139).

In 1957, the company, later known as the Gulf American Land Corporation, acquired a huge piece of marshland on the Caloosahatchee River for just under $ 700,000.

As early as 1958, the first 8 detached houses were built on today’s Riverside Drive and Flamingo Drive.

Gloria Raso Tate, Realtor, Cape Coral | A 9-year-old Tate moved with her family to Cape Coral in 1960, when there were fewer than 200 residents.

The Yacht & Racquet Club opened in 1962 to attract even more land and house buyers.

The airport was shut down in 1965 and flights were moved over to Page Field in Fort Myers once the Cape Coral Bridge was built.

By 1967 when Gulf American’s land sales activity peaked, it was Florida’s fourth largest publicly traded corporation with more than 500,000 acres of land for sale in Florida and across the United States (Cumming 24).

Starting in 1968, the Cape Coral Citizen’s Association began persuading residents to consider the idea of incorporation.

The campaign intensified in 1969 as residents grew frustrated with the failure of Lee County government to service the community.

Unsustainable as a profit-making enterprise, the park became too expensive to maintain and closed in August 1970.

The company eventually filed for bankruptcy in 1975.

Doddrill, David E. Selling the Dream, The Gulf American Corporation and the Building of Cape Coral, University of Alabama Press, 1993.

Since 1997, with the Midpoint Bridge, a direct connection to the Interstate 75 was inaugurated, Cape Coral is one of the fastest growing cities in Florida.

Syd Kitson | In 2009, Kitson, a former professional football player, bought 91,000 acres a half-hour inland from Cape Coral.

An anecdote about the founding history appeared in 2017 in the News-Press.

Monaco, C.S. The Second Seminole War and the Limits of American Aggression, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018.

With an area of close to 120 square miles, geographically Cape Coral is the second largest city in Florida and the largest city between Tampa and Miami.The City of Cape Coral celebrated its 50 Year Anniversary in January, 2020.