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  Yacht Club Cape Coral

Cape Coral Yacht Club Sunset

Yacht Club Sunset

     I have found references to a Fort Myers Southern Railroad with service to Bonita Springs.  It began operating in 1925.  The railroad was owned by Barron Collier.

     I have found references to Seaboard Airline Railroad with service to Bonita Springs.  An individual named Alex Grantt stated the above photo of was of a train depot owned by the Seaboard Airline Railroad.

    .If anyone has more information about this please contact me 

     Earnest Oakley Hunt was the force behind the Placid Tower in Placid Lake, Florida. He moved from Colorado to Orlando in 1938. He then moved to Sebring, Florida in 1947. It was about this time that he found a location for his observation tower in Lake Placid, Florida.

     12 years later, Hunt and his partner and his partner Robert Gray formed Air View Corporation with the sole goal of building an observation tower. The tower was designed by Lakeland architect A. Wynn Howell.  It was built by Ridge Builders (a Hunt and and Gray Company) in 1960.

     The Tower was constructed with nearly 100,000 concrete blocks. It was 240 feet tall. Placid Tower opened on January 1, 1961. There was a gift shop and a snack bar at the base of the tower. The Chamber of Commerce was adjacent to the gift shop.

     In the late 1960’s, the tower was renamed The Happiness Tower and Tower of Peace.  The tower closed in 1982 due to financial issues. It reopened 1986, but it still had poor ticket sales. To generate more sales, a petting zoo was added and a pay phone was installed at the top of the tower. The last owner to operate the tower ran it from 1992 to 2003.

     The tower was sold to CHL Tower Group on 11/6/2003.  It has been operated as a cell tower ever since.

     There is a historic mission style building located on Jackson Street in Fort Myers.  This was a railroad passenger station built by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad in 1924.  It remained in service until 1971. It was abandoned.  The building stood empty until 1982.

     In 1982, the building became the Southwest Florida Museum of History.  It functioned as the museum until 2015.  The museum had decreasing visitors.

     In 2015, the Imaginarium and the Southwest Museum of History merged.  The old Atlantic Coast Line Railroad Station was empty once again.

     The next tenant of the old railroad station was the Southwest Florida Community Foundation.  This is a non for profit organization whose goal is to cultivate regional change for common good through collective leadership, social innovation and philanthropy and to address evolving needs in Lee, Collier, Charlotte, Hendry and Glades counties. This organization has 22 employees.