FLORIDA PLACES AND DESTINATIONS:
FORT MYERS
Fort Myers, the “City of Palms,” has a charming downtown historic district and expanding hub of urban activity that extends to shopping malls, restaurants and nightclubs.
Inventor Thomas Edison and his friend, automobile manufacturer Henry Ford, decided early on to make their winter homes in Fort Myers. Today visitors daily tour their neighboring estates with Edison's botanical gardens, laboratory and museum.
Edison came to Fort Myers because he thought the warm weather would improve his health. He must have been correct, for he lived to the age of 84. During Edison's 46 winters in Fort Myers, he and his wife Mina hosted well-known house guests like industrialist Harvey Firestone, naturalist John Burroughs, President-elect Herbert Hoover, the Philadelphia A's baseball team, and cereal king John Harvey Kellogg. Each February, residents celebrate the birthday of the city's most famous resident in the Festival of Light, three weeks of events that culminate in a nighttime parade through the center of town.
Henry Ford's home, "Mangoes," opened to the public in February 1990 after extensive renovation to replicate the way it looked when Ford and his wife Clara lived there. Ford bought the quaint house in 1916 to spend the winter months visiting Edison. The two properties are separated by a fence the two families named "The Friendship Gate."
At Manatee Park in Fort Myers visitors can observe endangered Florida Manatees in their non-captive habitat from three observation areas during “Manatee Season,” November through March. With Manatee World you can take an educational and entertaining ecological boat safari into the natural habitat of the endangered West Indian manatee and observe manatees, along with alligators and a wide variety of bird life.
For the sports minded, public golf courses and tennis courts make southwest Florida some of the best playing turf in the state. East of downtown Fort Myers, the Lehigh Acres residential community surrounds three quality golf courses, 16 well-stocked freshwater fishing lakes and miles of canals.
Other in-town attractions include the Southwest Florida Historical Museum, river cruises from the downtown yacht basin and the Calusa Nature Center and Planetarium. Visitors also like to drive the short distance to the Shell Factory in North Fort Myers and Eden Vineyards, the country’s southernmost bonded winery, to the east.
Photo: Visit Florida
