OTHER HISTORICAL SITES
THE LIGHTHOUSE
The urgent need for a lighthouse was apparent by the late 19th century when south Florida was considered the land of opportunity. After the Civil War, Union Army blockade runners, Confederate sympathizers, Florida cattlemen, and sport fishermen sought this area for a better life.
In the 1880s, Point Ybel was chosen as a site for a 104-foot-high lighthouse. Its slender inner cylinder, braced 20 feet off the ground by an iron column, was supported by a pyramid-shaped frame of latticed wrought iron that offered little resistance to high winds. The French-built giant lens was mounted in brass and revolved, by means of intricate clockworks, around a fixed frame.
The foundation of the lighthouse took three months to build. But the shipping vessel carrying the unassembled iron tower from Jersey City sank during a storm two miles short of Point Ybel. Hard hat divers salvaged all but two brackets.
The completion of the lighthouse in 1884 guaranteed the safety of commercial and passenger vessels arriving on Sanibel.
The light required almost constant attention. Every morning the lighthouse keeper or his assistant climbed 98 steps to the lantern, extinguished the flame, trimmed the wick, wound the clockworks, polished the glass and drew shut the curtain that protected the lens from the powerful rays of the sun. In the evening he filled the huge lamp with oil and lit it.
Lighthouse after 1947 hurricane
Last Lighthouse Keeper Bob England and family
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THE GABLES
The Gables, or the Nutt Homestead, was built in 1889 and is the oldest house on Sanibel. It was the home of Laetitia Ashmore Nutt and her daughters who came from Louisiana to settle and homestead the land. Laetitia became the first postmistress of Sanibel in 1889. She took in boarders and day students for $3 a month when she taught school.
The history of this house and the Nutt family adds mystery and intrigue to the island. Laetitia Ashmore married a Kentucky gentleman and moved to Louisiana where she raised three daughters. The Civil War changed all their lives when Leroy Nutt was asked by General Lee to raise a company of volunteers. Laetitia followed her husband, daughters in tow, throughout the campaign, holding court with General Lee and other distinguished southern gentlemen. When the war was over Leroy became a lawyer and a state senator. Following his death in 1880 and a house fire that destroyed all their possessions, Laetitia moved to Sanibel.
She died in 1914 after being a driving force on Sanibel as teacher, postmistress and community organizer. The Gables was eventually sold to an Episcopal sisterhood. But their home was later bought back by their cousin Florence Hamlett Young. Members of the family still live there.
The Gables Today
Laetitia Nutt
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THE WOODRING HOMESTEAD
