Fort Myers’ past is written in streets and stone
Fort Myers wears its history on the surface if you know where to look. A single boulevard, a limestone wall, even a grove of trees can tell stories that textbooks left out.
Much of what shaped the city happened far from headlines. The legacy lingers in unexpected ways, leaving behind markers you may have walked by countless times without pause.
The avenue that named a city
McGregor Boulevard’s long row of royal palms helped fix Fort Myers’ nickname, “City of Palms.”
In 1907, Thomas Edison began planting royal palms along what was then Riverside Avenue, an effort that later stretched into the thousands of trees…