BOOK
REVIEW
HIDDEN HISTORY
OF
FORT MYERS
A Book Review By Jonathan Herbert
Hidden History of Fort Myers is an
exceptional book about the past 100-
year history of a charming city often
associated with its most popular resident,
Thomas Edison. Historian and author Cynthia
Williams introduces us to the heart of a very
unique place in her own words.
“In this detail of Fort Myers history lies, for
me, the essential comedic, merry-go-round
nature of human life on this planet. If you get
enough distance, you
see it. And with yet a
little more distance, you
may perceive that the
comedy of human
endeavor is somehow
endearing, even heroic.
“For life isn’t easy;
humans never stop
trying, never cease
pushing against the
obstructions of life to get
beyond them, is heroic.”
Cynthia grew up in
Fort Myers but has lived
most of her adult life in
Arizona and North
Carolina. She now lives
in Bokeelia on Pine
Island, where she
indulges her love of
history by writing
narrative histories of Fort
Myers for the Sunday Tropicalia section of the
Fort Myers News-Press.
Fort Myers has a history as intriguing as the
people and events that shaped it, she said.
“The spawn of a hurricane, Fort Myers began
as a U.S. Army post during Florida’s Seminole
Wars. During the Civil War, it became a battleground
between Confederates and Yankees
16 GASPARILLA MAGAZINE May/June 2020
for cattle and, after the war, a gun-slinging
cowboy town. New York cartoonist Walt
McDougall blew into the area on a fi shing trip,
and his glowing description lured down other
wealthy Yankee sportsmen who helped turn
this isolated frontier town into a modern tourist
destination.”
There are portraits and timeless
photographs throughout the text that
accentuate vivid descriptions and exemplary
prose. A drawing of a
military post that shaped
the future of Fort Myers
during the Civil War adds
to the imagination of living
there during this pivotal
time in Florida history.
The drawing on page
19 was by an offi cer that
shows offi cers’ quarters
and barracks built along
the waterfront. The path
before these buildings
would eventually become
First Street of the future
town of Fort Myers.
Thomas Edison is
pictured wearing a top hat
on page 52, legs crossed
in an offi ce chair with sand
under his feet, looking off
into the distance. He was
a storm-driven refugee at
the time, a disgruntled electrician who arrived
in March 1885.
The author starts with how the town of Fort
Myers, Florida “evolved from a fort that was
established in the lull between the second and
third Seminole Wars. The Seminole wars have
received little attention in historical text,
literature or fi lm.”