Special Article
by LYNNE HOWARD FRAZIER Photography courtesy
of NAPLES HISTORICAL SOCIETY
Naples may be the
Rodney Dangerfield
of cities when it
comes to its beginnings.
Here, history
gets no respect. In a
city with few tangible
links to perhaps a
too-short past, the
brown Historic District
signs leading
into the heart of old
Naples often leave
visitors — and residents —
stumped.
Where’s the history?
Few obvious relics remain of the once-remote resort perched
on the edge of the Everglades, but a new photographic history
book, Naples, may earn a new respect for the supposedly
history challenged
Historic District.
Published in December 2004 by Arcadia Publishing as part
of the popular Images of America series, Naples includes
a combination
of images from the historic photograph collection of the
Naples Historical Society as well as vintage postcards from
the
collection of Nina H. Webber.
The 200 antique images, many
previously unpublished, illustrate the history of Naples
from its
tenuous beginning in 1885 to the tumultuous year of 1960,
when
Hurricane Donna slammed ashore.
When research for the book was conducted, a treasure-trove
of early oral histories, recorded and transcribed by the
Naples
Historical Society’s Tape Recorded Interview Committee
in the
1960s and ‘70s, provided rare quotes and first-person
observations
from some of the earliest Naples residents and visitors.
The
often pithy comments written on the postcards also provided
unusual insight into life in early Naples, including this
intriguing
message written on an early Naples Hotel postcard, “This
is
to show you we really stayed in Naples, though not at this
place.
The people appeared too sporty.” Selecting
the best images from a collection of more than 1,000 historic
photographs proved to be a daunting task;
one
made even more daunting by the fact that many of the earliest
images of the fledgling winter resort town were undated.
Tiny
clues helped: the presence of utility lines (a new ice
and power
plant opened in 1923, built to primarily serve the Naples
Hotel,
although houses within a mile could connect to the system),
and known, dateable changes to two of the most important
structures in the town—the pier and the Naples Hotel.
In the late 1880s, the pier and the Naples Hotel were virtually
the only structures in Naples. The Naples Company’s
first
promotional brochure, published in 1888, warned potential
investors and tourists, “Visitors must not expect to
find a ‘city’ already made;
but the location and surroundings, the advantages, beauties
and attractions are all there.”
Far from Flagler’s east-coast railroads—or
any roads—the
newly established winter resort was accessible only by
boat so
the pier became the town’s vital—and only—link
to the outside
world. An exceptional photograph, found still glued to
its original
scrapbook page, revealed a rarely seen view of the lower
dock of
the pier, where visitors could comfortably disembark from
Naples Company boats.
A combination boardwalk and luggage tramway fitted with
rails extended from the foot of the pier to the 20-room
Naples
Hotel, situated grandly on Pier Street (now 12th Avenue
South).
Henry Watterson, editor of the Louisville Courier-Journal
and a
friend of Walter N. Haldeman, who became the sole owner
of the
hotel, the pier and all Naples Company assets in 1890,
described
the pine wood hotel as “a pretentious edifice, technically
described as the hotel, but looking the house of a gentleman.” Although
Naples was a remote destination, the superlative hunting
and fishing lured a growing number of sportsmen
to
this rustic paradise. For those who could afford a trip
to Naples
and, perhaps, an exotic safari into the Everglades, the
Naples
Hotel and a handful of rental cottages provided the only
accommodations.
A 1905 advertisement in Country Life in
America
emphasized the resort’s unpretentious, easy-going
ambience,“
The hotel has a reputation for being a homelike place,
conducted
for the use of those who go to south Florida for health
and for
fishing and hunting. But it is not at all a fashionable
place, for
the guests dress and do as they please.” Many
of the earliest photographs of Naples were taken by John “Hack” Hachmeister,
a wealthy owner of nine racing
associations and an avid sportsman and photographer.
In
1912,
Hachmeister arrived with five friends for seven weeks of
hunting
and fishing, and enthusiastically documented his adventures,
sometimes chronicling with subtle humor his life in the
rough
and not-always-ready resort town. A series of four photographs
shows the progress of this first hunting trip, from the
group
assembling in front of the Naples Hotel to the horse-drawn
carriages working their way through the “hole-in-the-wall” gap
in the cypress swamp.
Naples History Continued >>>>
From n Magazine's Arts Pages sponsored by
The Lutgert Companies and Premier Properties.
