Frontier Days
Southwest Florida remained virtually uninhabited until after the Civil War when handfuls of farmers and squatters began making their way south in mule wagons, ox carts, or sailboats. Early pioneers fished and hunted for a living; raised crops of cabbage, sugar cane, tomatoes and pineapples; dug clams, made charcoal, sold bird plumes, and trapped otters and alligators for their pelts and hides.

Trading posts started by Ted Smallwood on Chokoloskee Island and George Storter at Everglade became important gathering places for the few isolated settlers and Indians. By the late 1880s, Naples and Marco Island were already gaining popularity as winter resorts for wealthy Northerners and sportsmen.

Cattle ranching is one of Collier County's oldest industries. By the early 1900s, ranchers were grazing herds of scrub cattle on the open rangeland around Immokalee and Corkscrew Settlement. Railroads gradually improved the ranchers access to market in the 1920s and helped raise the County's beef cattle industry to national importance by the end of World War II.