provided to The Santiva Chronicle
The Sanibel Historical Museum & Village is celebrating the City of Sanibel’s 50th anniversary – and its own 40th anniversary – by focusing on “The Way We Were,” which will be the theme of the museum’s February 18 fundraiser.
To start, and to complement the new exhibit showcasing the city’s incorporation, the museum is working on a series of articles outlining how the city came to be.
“The way we are today is because of the way they were,” said SHMV Advisory Board member Gayle Pence. She named Porter Goss, Charles LeBuff, Francis Bailey, Zee Butler, Vernon MacKenzie, Aileen Lotz, and the 1970s island community as key people responsible for the island’s incorporation.
This is Part I, Trouble is Brewing! The Big Scare
After the completion of the Sanibel Causeway in 1963, Lee County Commissioners had their zoning sights set on major high-rise condo and hotel growth, turning Sanibel Island into a tourist amusement playground with a big-city population akin to Miami Beach. The county assumed the island would support nearly 100,000 people. County commissioners regarded people of Sanibel as second-class citizens. (To gain some perspective, consider that in 1952, fewer than 50 families made their home on Sanibel with a total population, including children, of not more than 150.)
The causeway was cause for much consternation among many people on Sanibel, chief among them the late Francis Bailey, the man the first mayor of Sanibel Porter Goss called the “Father of Sanibel.”
“Serious talk about the bridge had been going on for a number of years,” Bailey remembered in his 2013 book, My 92 Years on Sanibel. “Lee County loved the causeway idea, but they loved the idea of development even more.”
Lee County hired an Atlanta-based planning firm to propose a high-density plan with high-rise condos to support that imagined population of 100,000 for Sanibel. The county was looking for Sanibel to be its “tax cash cow.”
Sanibel repeatedly asked for a comprehensive land-use plan from Lee County, but none ever came forward. Such a plan was what many islanders viewed as essential to the control of growth and development on Sanibel.
The new exhibit at the museum, located in Shore Haven, has a timeline showing the events leading up to the incorporation of the City of Sanibel. The museum is now open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is $10 and free for members and children. The Rutland House and Burnap Cottage remain closed at this time.
Beginning January 7 through April 30, the museum will be open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the cost will be $15 for adults. Summer hours begin May 1 through July 31, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The museum closes August 1 through mid-October for the off-season.
Visit the museum to see “The Way We Were.” Save the date of February 18 to celebrate the Historical Village’s 40th anniversary and the City’s 50th anniversary at the museum’s gala fundraiser.
Next week: 1971-1972 – Alarmed Island Residents
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