BONITA SPRINGS when it was called SURVEY The city on the Imperial River wasnt always Bonita Springs. It started as a surveyors camp, and as homesteaders began settling there in the late 1800s, the description morphed into its name. For the next 25 years the growing community was known as Survey. It had a post office, a school and even a hotel. But when Tennessean investors came to town in 1912 looking to develop the area, all that changed. Some investors, developers from Fort Myers, saw the potential here, said Charlie Strader, a community liaison for the Bonita Springs Historical Society. They saw a way to make money. They started buying up land and developing it and in that process the name Bonita Springs got in there and stuck. That name change, though, wouldnt be the last time the Lee County city would reinvent itself. By 1912 about 70 students from 20 families were enrolled in the communitys public school. That same year marked the beginning of its first growth spurt when investors bought 2,400 acres around Survey J.H. Ragsdale, one of the investors, decided to rename the community after his daughter Bonita and the springs behind the Heitman Hotel, according to a historical society exhibit at the Liles Hotel. Ragsdale and his team started laying out streets and avenues, and within five years the first road between Fort Myers and Bonita Springs was completed. That road was key to the communitys growth. So was the railroad. And the completion of the Tamiami Trail led to another land boom. In many ways, people came (to Bonita Springs) for the same reasons we come today: The rich natural resources and the good weather, Strader said. They came here for that, and as (the community grew) you started to have small hotels pop up as the road came in. Rhonda Lyles Lawhons great grandfather built one of those early hotels. J. Wallace Liles built the Liles Hotel in 1926 on the Imperial River with tourists in mind. But with the Great Depression looming — the stock market crash occurred three years after the Liles built the hotel — the Liles Hotel was short lived. The Liles Hotel actually failed because of the Depression, Lyles Lawhon said. It was kind of built expecting a boom in the area. There was a boom of sorts, but it didnt last long, not for Bonita Springs. The Great Depression — combined with a handful of damaging hurricanes in the 1920s — slowed development, and within 20 years development was at a standstill, said lifelong Bonita resident Byron Liles. By the 1940s, it was a stalemated area, with a lot of vacant property, unsold property and a lot of subdivisions that never got further than sidewalks and curbs, he said. The Depression didnt just slow development, its also the reason Bonita Springs wasnt a city until the end of the 20th century. Bonita Springs incorporated in 1925, but in 1932 the city gave up its charter because of a delinquent light bill. County officials at the time told city officials that if they gave up the charter the county would help pay the bill. The community would remain a part of unincorporated Lee County until 1999 when Bonita Springs residents approved a measure to once again become a city. But the lull wouldnt last long. Strader said increased access over the years — through the development of I-75 and Southwest Florida International Airport — once again prompted development. And while Strader said the beaches werent what drew people to Bonita Springs, it ultimately was part of what brought people to the area during the most recent wave of growth. Its our evolution, Strader said. But its a common evolution story in Florida. Post from Mimi Long!
Posted on: Fri, 07 Nov 2014 18:40:59 +0000
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