A look at pioneer landscape of Naples

Pioneer view of area that became Naples,
 Florida. This is a screengrab of a WCGU video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRBW-tuD79Q

The end of the calendar year is perfect for mentioning old habits. Mine is about newspapers. I still subscribe to the formerly family-owned paper where I worked for many years.

Today, the newspaper is part of the USA Today chain owned by Gannett. When I log in to the online version of the local paper, I can also see stories from throughout the chain's holdings. This morning a letter to the editor popped up from the Naples area, more than 200 miles from me. The writer was frustrated about overdevelopment and overcrowding and the resulting traffic jams.

Located on Florida's southwest coast, Naples is a picturesque city and one of the state's wealthiest areas. Yet it is plagued by overdevelopment like so much of Florida. A look at Naples today makes it hard to realize how remote the area once was.

It's funny that the newspaper letter appeared in front of me two days after I watched a YouTube video about the early days of Naples. What a contrast. 

For this short holiday season post, I leave you with that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRBW-tuD79Q. You also can find the video and many others by going directly to the WCGU page on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@wgcu 

You'll see how the Naples area was developed in a resort-like manner almost from the start. It always fascinates me to see how settlements appeared in their early days. 

Outpost, outlaw, island a unique mix

Ted Smallwood, seated, talks with Ernest Coe in Smallwood
store in this undated photo that appears in the 1968 book,
Man in the Everglades. Coe was a driving forced behind
establishment of  Everglades National Park.

You have to want to go to Chokoloskee Island. It's not on the way to anywhere else. South of Everglades City, it's in the part of Southwest Florida known as the Ten Thousand Islands.

It's remote now. Imagine one hundred years ago. Chokoloskee Island is one of those places that lend credence to the idea of frontier Florida as a slice of the Old West, albeit with a different climate. Renegades really did hide out, shoot it out and slink around. White settlers and Native Americans stepped warily around one another after fighting three wars between the 1830s and 1850s.

One famous outlaw story is associated with Chokoloskee Island and in particular with the waterfront trading post known as Smallwood store. My post isn't focused on the outlaw. His name was Edgar Watson and his story is overall scary. You can read about him in the island's Wikipedia page and in the novel Killing Mr. Watson mentioned in the video that is linked below.

This post is more about the store, which I visited with my husband some years ago. It's a historic site and museum now.

Ted Smallwood opened the general store/post office in 1906. History says he was known for having a mutually respectful relationship with the Seminoles in the area. You have to remember, the 19-aughts were only 50 years after the end of the Third Seminole War. In modern perspective, it would be like something that happened in the 1960s. Plenty of folk were still around who remembered the previous era. Many Seminoles and white settlers weren't on the friendliest of terms.

The trading post both was and wasn't a Little House on the Prairie-type store. For one thing, the back porch extends right out over Chokoloskee Bay. The place was extremely isolated. Only about ten families lived on the island. Homesteaders picked up their mail at the store and shopped for goods like lanterns, fabric, and farm and fishing equipment. Indians  glided up on the waterfront side in canoes and traded furs and hides.

The store remained open until the 1980s and still retains its original look. I was amazed when I walked through. Soon as I dig out (I mean find) our photos from that trip I'll post some of them. In the meantime, you can see a great virtual tour on the Smallwood website.

Life on Chokoloskee Island in the early 1900s was unlike anywhere else. In some ways, it still is today.

Watch a video about the Smallwood Store at
the link below (Photo credit: Smallwood website). 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmwe21ifG5U

Amish pioneered in Florida

Road sign is in the North, a traditional
 location of Amish settlements. But
an Amish community in Florida dates
 to pioneer years. Creative Commons
photo credit: Daniel Schwen

The word Amish makes me think of rolling farmland and horse-and-buggy transportation on rural roads in the North and Midwest. Not fun in the sun in Florida.

That, despite my knowing that Pinecraft in Sarasota is a popular vacation destination for many Amish. The surprise, for me, is learning that Pinecraft was established in the 1920s by an Amish man who had a celery farm.

Suddenly the Amish are part of Florida pioneer history.

The Anabaptist community's roots in Florida are traced to a farmer named Daniel Kurtz, according to the website Amish America. The website cites a book titled The History of Pinecraft, 1925-1960, by Noah Gingerich. I can't find a copy anywhere except online for $90+ dollars  - not an option! -  and in Sarasota-area libraries - a good three- to four-hour drive from me.

There appears to be no in-depth history within my reach. I did find a 28-year-old news item in the Tampa Bay Times. It mentions that two of the earliest residents were of the Yoder and Miller families, and that streets are named after them. Sorry I can't link to the article, as I had to log in to read it via the duPont-Ball research library at Stetson University. The March 7, 1989 item is bylined Pat Fenner.

According to the article, Daniel Kurtz was Old Order Amish, and he and his family moved farther south in 1925 after finding Tampa too worldly. He and his family settled "a long horse ride away" from Sarasota.

Others must have soon followed suit. The multi-author book The Amish (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013) notes that a "handful of farmers" (location 4424 in Kindle) bought land for celery farming on the outskirts of Sarasota in the late 1920s.

Florida land prices skyrocketed in the early 1920s during the Florida boom, which collapsed in 1926. Either Kurtz started his farm at the height of the boom, or he and the others scooped up acreage at reasonable prices after the market crashed. Both Amish America and Wikipedia mention that Pinecraft had previously been the site of the Sarasota National Tourist Camp. Perhaps the camp was a victim of the crash.

Word of Florida seems to have traveled quickly. In Amish Society (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993, 4th Edition), author John A. Hostetler says elderly Amish began vacationing in Florida "as early as 1927" (page 358) for health reasons. Pinecraft became kind of a resort for them.

It remains so today. Thousands of Amish travel to Pinecraft by bus each year and, once in town, get around on bicycles. A resource about the modern-day scene is the blog Pinecraft-Saraosta by resident Katie Troyer. She writes about the regular goings-on in town and seems to know just about everybody.

So there you have the extent of my knowledge of early Pinecraft. Many questions, few answers. I'll keep digging. My husband and I have traveled throughout most of Florida, but not yet to the Sarasota region. Time to plan a mini-getaway. History awaits.

From Google Maps