Distinctly American: Fort Myers -- Horticultural Gem of Florida Cities
By David J. Driapsa, FASLA
Settlement of the Southwest Florida frontier was relatively late in the expansion of the United States. Extreme South Florida long remained an outpost of civilization, well into the mid-twentieth century. Late development of this region combined with technological advancement in transportation and communication enabled pioneer town founders to introduce civilizing elements within their remote communities, even though they existed deep within wilderness. Luxury hotels erected within the coastal area enabled wealthy northern sportsmen and adventurers living upon yachts to anchor in deep ports and come ashore to use the telegraph link to Key West, dine and entertain with kindred spirits.
Old letters from the Arizona territory, reviewed by this author in the Special Collections Archives at University of Arizona, Tucson, reveal that civilizing ideals of 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago were carried west and translated into general plans of several company-built mining towns in Arizona wilderness. The classically inspired town, though it may only be a single broad avenue and an orderly arrangement of buildings, was believed to bring valuable civilizing influences upon the wilderness.
Similar classically inspired “special use” towns contemporary with those in Arizona were developed in Southwest Florida, principally as operation centers for natural resource extraction activities. Other written sources reveal where civic-minded pioneer men and women living in the frontier of Southwest Florida persuaded city government to civilize their towns by paving roads, laying sidewalks, building fences to control roving cows, and planting decorative street trees and flowers to beautifying the landscape. Thomas A. Edison, the inventor and a long-time winter resident of Fort Myers, and his wife Mina, were active civic boosters and did much to humanize the village surrounding their winter estate.
Fort Myers in the early decades of the twentieth century grew into a charming frontier town. Beginning with Edison in 1885, who was attracted to the beautiful setting and subtropical climate, a little colony of wealthy industrialists built handsome homes on estates lining the Caloosahatchee River among the orange groves. Their little town grew prosperous, first with cattle, then citrus, sports fishing, winter vegetables, tropical plant production and tourists.
Edison had sent botanists around the world in search of new species of bamboo to use as a carbonized filament in his development of the electric light bulb. He grew bamboo in his garden and assembled the finest subtropical botanical collection in the nation. In 1907, he offered and the city accepted a plan to beautify the road that passed through his estate by planting on each side a colonnade of stately Royal Palms (Roystonia regia) twenty feet apart for one-mile distance extending from the edge of town to beyond his estate. This planting was extended ten more miles out McGregor Boulevard to the plantations of Dr. Franklin Miles, owner of Miles Laboratories. This beautiful avenue of palms and important city landmark survives today as an inspiring historic roadway.
The Everglades Nursery of Fort Myers under the management of James Hendry, who also was civic minded and planted many of the Royals Palms along McGregor Boulevard, donated the beautiful bougainvillea vine to all homeowners of the city who would plant them in their gardens, contributing immensely to the beauty of Fort Myers. The railroad reached Fort Myers in 1904 and opened a shipping pipeline to send local products to northern markets. Commercial production of winter vegetables and tropical ornamental plants increased exponentially and transformed vast tracts of land into vegetable crops and plant nurseries. The Everglades Nursery shipped millions of small potted palms to northern markets for table decorations. The availability of rare plants enabled local gardeners to transform the landscape of Fort Myers into a tropical horticultural marvel composed of sensuous palms and colorful foliage and flowers. Writing in 1917, Henry Nehrling described Fort Myers as the “Horticultural Gem” of Florida cities.
Dr. Franklin Miles, founder of the Miles Pharmaceutical Laboratory of Elgin, Illinois, retired to Fort Myers in 1904. Restless in retirement and aware of the potential northern markets through the railroad, he established commercial farming in the region. His approach was scientific. He collaborated with the USA Department of Agriculture in Washington D.C. and experts visited him both to advise and to learn from his results. His “School of Practical Agriculture” educated a generation of leading growers in the early days of Lee County farming.
Expert gardeners from Miles’ school beautified the estates of the wealthy northerners. Among them were James Hendry, Arthur Kelly and Vincent Honc, each having worked on the planting of Royal Palms along McGregor Boulevard. Henry Nehrling, a naturalist and experimenter in tropical ornamentals and a writer, spread the gospel of tropical wilderness gardens. Lewis A. Pearl, an early landscape architect, created Arts and Crafts inspired formal gardens, some using native plants.
In 1916, automobile magnate and wealthiest industrialist in America, Henry Ford bought the riverfront estate named the “Mangoes” next door to his mentor, Edison. Poet laureate John Burroughs was a visitor to the Mangoes and a camping companion of Ford, Edison, Harvey Firestone and President Warren Harding. Ford and Mrs. Edison shared with Burroughs a great passion for birdlife. The Fords were working with Landscape Architect Jens Jensen, of Chicago, to create a naturalized Prairie Style landscape on their large rural estate named “Fair View” in Detroit, Michigan. The Edisons were naturalizing their estate in Fort Myers to encourage birds and other wildlife, as well as to restore a semblance of wild scenery that once surrounded their property. They retained the firm of John Nolen & Associates Landscape Architects of Cambridge, Massachusetts for planning advice. Mrs. Edison also retained Landscape Architect Ellen Biddle Shipman of New York to design a small garden in the Arts and Crafts Style on the estate where her husband’s laboratory had been removed by Ford and taken to his Dearborn historical museum and replaced with a small office and an enclosure outlining the space previously occupied by the laboratory. The Reasoner Brothers Landscape Architects were later retained to revise the plantings. Landscape Gardener Henry Nehrling of Naples was retained to beautify gardens and naturalize grounds.
Edison occupied himself in botanical experiments working to produce a domestic source of rubber. He investigated thousands of plants and his results indicated native goldenrod (Solidago spp.). His experimental gardens were in interesting contrast to the pleasure grounds across the street. Laid out in precise geometrical beds of eight by twenty foot rectangles, here with scientific precision Edison recorded the results of his experiments. Edison died in 1931 and his botanic experiments were turned over to younger scientists, but not before he was able to apply the collective wisdom gained in his forty-six year pursuit of Fort Myers subtropical horticulture.
Ford moved on after friend Edison died. Mrs. Edison returned seasonally until her death in 1947, and then her estate was given as a gift to the city as a memorial to her husband. It is currently under restoration. Following World War II Fort Myers took the course of many American cities. People moved to the suburbs and the historic center languished. Today the historic core is enjoying a rebirth. Many historic buildings remain, and in places one still sees the beautiful historic cultural landscape of this bygone horticultural gem of Florida cities.
David J Driapsa Landscape Architect
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