Sanibel Historical Museum & Village

    

     FOOTSTEPS

     

               Sanibel is more than shells, sandy beaches and beautiful sunsets.

Visitors can trace the footsteps from the island’s past as they meander along the Village trails that skirt a mangrove bordered by a pond. The Village opened in 1984 and is now comprised of seven historic buildings.

     

               In 1974, the City of Sanibel was incorporated in an effort to control  unbridled development on the island. Troubled by the changes that were occuring, Elinore Dormer helped to form the Historical Preservation Committee. Land was set aside for the Historical Village, and the committee raised the $3500 needed to move the donated Clarence Rutland House to its present site.

 

               In 1984, the Rutland House became a museum. It was open one day a week, eight months of the year, and staffed by members of the Historical Preservation Committee and a few other docents. Today, almost 100 volunteers staff the Museum, which is now open four days a week from November to August. The Old Bailey Store, Miss Charlotta’s Tea Room, and the Old Post Office were added to the Museum in 1991 and 1992. With the additions of the Burnap Cottage and the Morning Glories houses in 1998 and 2001, the Village was almost complete. The Old Schoolhouse, was moved to the Village in December, 2004 and is now restored as a typical  one-room schoolhouse.

 

         The buildings within the Historical Village, dating back to 1896, have been fully restored by volunteers and stand as a testament to a group of early pioneers who homesteaded Sanibel in the late 1880s. They braved wars, hurricanes, and insects to establish roots and build a community, the foundation of which is evident today on Sanibel Island where the environment and history have been preserved for future generations.

        

 

     BLACK HISTORY ON SANIBEL

 

         From the 1500s to the 1700s,  England, Spain and France attempted to colonize Florida,  the Caribbean and Mexico. This brought an enormous amount of shipping to the area. Pirates were paid by one country to plunder goods from another. It's estimated that 30-50% of those pirates were black— perhaps these pirates were led by Black Augustus, Black Caesar or Jose Gaspar.

 

         In the late 1880s, Black Americans settled in Punta Gorda and by the 1920s, two families arrived on Sanibel to work as sharecroppers. Isaiah Gavin and his family were the first on Sanibel. The Johnsons, Walkers, Mitchells, Hursts, Bohers, Preschas, Whitcarrs and Jordans followed. Unfortunately, their children had to cross San Carlos Bay to attend school in Ft. Myers. The families searched for a building to use as an elementary school. An empty Baptist Church on Tarpon Road was informally used as a school for Black children as early as 1924, but in 1927 the school was officially opened.

 

               In 1929, Lee County bought the building from the Florida Baptist Church for $1500. To keep the school open, the school board required at least 7 children in attendance. With the advent of World War II and the depletion of fertile farm land after several hurricanes, many islanders --- who now numbered only 100 --- left the island. The little school for Black children had to close, and the children were once again ferried across the bay to a Black school in Dunbar.

 

         Even though a new school was opened on Sanibel in 1962, Black families still had to send their children across to the mainland. In 1964/65, parents convinced the school board to allow integration at the Sanibel School—thus giving Sanibel the distinction of having the first integrated school in Lee County.

         The naming of Sanibel and Captiva is part fact, part folklore.

The name Sanibel resulted from a series of mistakes by Spanish map makers who misinterpreted the abbreviation "s" which in Spanish means "south" or "saint." Early sailing charts show the island having a deep and protected harbor. A 1765 map names this harbor Puerto  de S. Nivel, meaning "South Plane Harbor." Later, a pilot of the Spanish fleet reported in his journal that he sailed by Punto de Sanibel.

 

         Ten years later a map called the island “Sanibel,” but over the years, other spellings surfaced. In 1833, a private investment group established the town of Sanibel at the island's east end. In the early 1900s, the "y" and "i" were interchangeable, but most writers used Sanibel, and it stuck!

 

         The name “Captiva” first appeared on Spanish maps as Cautiva, meaning "single male captive." Island historian, Elinore Dormer, surmises that the name refers to Juan Ortiz, a young Spaniard captured by the Calusa in the early 1500s.