The area around Chokoloskee Bay, including the site of Everglades City, was occupied for thousands of years by Native Americans of the
Glades culture, who were absorbed by the
Calusa shortly before the arrival of
Europeans in the
New World.
19th century By the time
Spanish Florida was transferred from
Spain to the United States in 1821 as
Florida Territory, the area was uninhabited. A legend says that
Seminoles planted potatoes along what is now the Barron River during the
Seminole Wars, in the vicinity of the present Everglades City. American settlement began after the
Civil War, when
Union sympathizers who had farmed on
Cape Sable to supply
Key West during the war moved up the west coast of the peninsula. The first permanent settler was William Smith Allen, who arrived on the banks of Potato Creek (later renamed the Allen River) in 1873. After Allen retired to Key West in 1889,
George W. Storter, Jr. became the principal landowner in the area. Storter gained fame for his
sugar cane crops. He opened a trading post in 1892, and gained a post office, called "
Everglade", in 1895. Storter also began entertaining northern tourists who came to Everglade by yacht in the winter to hunt and fish. His house eventually grew into the Rod and Gun Club, visited by
United States Presidents and other notables. The first school in Everglade was organized in 1893. The school moved into a new building in 1895, but the building was destroyed by a
tornado later in the year.
20th century The next school building was washed away by the
1910 hurricane. A
Methodist circuit rider began visiting Everglade in 1888, and another Methodist minister began a four-year residency the next year. After that, Everglade was occasionally visited by itinerant preachers of various denominations. The
Episcopal Church established a mission at
Immokalee which eventually moved to Everglade when revitalized in the 1930s by
Harriet Bedell. In 1922,
Barron Collier began buying large areas of land in what was then southern
Lee County. In 1923, the
Florida legislature created
Collier County from Lee County, and they chose the county seat to be in Everglade. During that same year, it only consisted of a dozen families, but some northern
sportsmen had established winter homes there. Also in 1923, the community was officially incorporated as the "
Town of Everglades" (adding the "s"). The
Tamiami Trail, which crossed Collier's domain, passed five miles north of Everglades City. While construction was proceeding on the Trail (it was completed in 1929), Collier pushed construction of what became
State Road 29 from Everglades City to
Immokalee, providing the town with its first land connection to the rest of the state. In 1928, the
Atlantic Coast Line Railroad began service to Everglades City, which became the southernmost point the Coast Line ever reached. Service was provided by an extension of the Coast Line's
Haines City Branch from Immokalee to
Deep Lake, where it connected to Collier's
Deep Lake Railroad, an earlier railroad that transported agricultural freight. The railroad was removed in 1957. In 1953, the "
Town of Everglades" became the "
City of Everglades". Everglades was hard hit, and two years later, Florida's legislature moved the county seat to
East Naples, Florida. In 1965, the state legislature changed the city's name to the "
City of Everglades City". ==Geography==