1. SPORTS AND
ENTERTAINMENT
Influence on Early Punta Gorda Development
Presentation by the Punta Gorda History Center
Theresa Murtha, Managing Director

2. What thelandhereprobablylooked
likein1880

3. Property Ownership under the United States
• 1821 US acquires Florida from Spain – largely
uninhabited except for Seminoles, escaped negro
slaves, some Spanish, British
• 1821 – Spanish Land Grants – ownership claims from
those who had settled in lands prior to US acquisition
• By 1840s – about 54,000 people in all of Florida … still
sparse population in southwest Florida
• 1860s – Florida Homesteaders come (1862 Act - 160
acres at $1.25/acre)– especially after Civil War – First
recorded U.S. settlers in Southwest Florida

4. Florida’s Natural Resources ------ Land
1844 –
prior to
statehood

5. So how to get people to come?
• For Investment
• For Better Opportunity in Life
• For Weather – Health
• For Recreation – Relaxation

7. Early Promoter – Charlotte
Harbor Area
John Barthoff
Wrote with F.C.M. Boggess:
“South Florida, the Italy of
America”

8. “Beginning with January, the weather gradually gets warmer… never gets hot
in the summer… heat tempered by cooling breezes of Gulf of Mexico….”
“Tropical fruits will grow on Charlotte Harbor… fine pineapples raised here”
“Perpetration of crimes of a serious nature very rare”
“The settler revels in a wealth of “good things”
‘We never have the cyclones and tornadoes common in other setions and
discomfort from snow and ice is unknown, our section is free from all
contagious diseases, such as yellow fever and smallpox…”
Barthoff on Charlotte Harbor Area:

9. Isaac’s Trabue

10. Trabue starts chess
tournament in
1885 to lure buyers
to his new town.

11. August 1, 1886 The Florida Southern Railway
began operating to Trabue

12. The Hotel Punta
Gorda
Built in 1886 –
converted to Hotel
Charlotte Harbor in
1920s

13. Boating – Yachting and
More

14. Delightful water
excursions, good
shooting, best tarpon
and salt water fishing
in the United States

15. Charles Dean
and the
Aroostook

16. Yachting attracted
wealth and investors –
Perry McAdow was
one

17. Perry McAdow
and the Roamer

18. Skulling on Charlotte Harbor in 1888

19. Caldwell Colt
and the Oriole

20. Excursions to
the Islands on
Connelly
Launch

23. Steam Boat

24. Sports
Fishing/Hunting

25. Newspapers across the county
touted the fishing in Charlotte
Harbor --- especially tarpon as
early as 1887

26. Monster Fish

29. Roosevelt comes to Punta Gorda to Capture the Devil
Fish

31. The Eagles Nest (Now Punta Gorda Elks Lodge)

32. Sportsman’s
Paradise

33. Pickering
Lodge
1940s-50s

35. Other Recreational
Sports

36. Barron Collier
Governor
Carlton

37. Hotel Charlotte Harbor
– Resort draws the
famous and other
tourists through sports
fishing, and leisure
sports
“The Charlotte Harbor” is a
Sportsman’s Resort” the ads for
it proclaimed.

40. Bill Tilden at
Hotel
Charlotte
Harbor 1931

41. Patty Berg nationally-known figure in 1936. She won the
Women’s Invitation at Charlotte Harbor. Golf Club.

42. Orioles coaxed to Punta Gorda for Spring Training in
1926

44. Early Punta Gorda Isles
Promotions Tout Sports Activities

45. Boating and Fishing continue to be
the draw to the Charlotte Harbor
areaNew Sunseekers Resort