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The Mound House on Fort Myers Beach

The Mound House is the oldest house on Fort Myers Beach (Estero Island) located at 289 Connecticut Street. It is now a museum dedicated to the Calusa Indians who built the 14 foot high shell mound on which the house stands and to the early settlers of Estero Island who built and enlarged the house. It is currently open as a museum with docents providing information on the house to visitors and staff providing guided tours. Days and hours can be found on http://moundhouse.org.

The Calusa Indians were the indigenous people that lived in what is now southwest Florida up until the early 18th century. They were a warlike people who demanded tribute from surrounding peoples extending all the way to the east coast of Florida. The Calusa developed a complex culture within their settlements that included political, religious, and military leaders. They were the dominant force in south Florida up until the arrival of the Spaniards. They used the waters around them for both transportation and a major source of food in the form of fish and shellfish. They also hunted the land around them for deer and other animals. The remains of their diet in the form of shells, fish and animal bones, and other debris accumulated through the years became building material for their mounds like the one on which the Mound House now sits. They built some of their mounds as foundations for homes and temples with the elevation also providing protection from storm surges. Other mounds include those on Pine Island and the 128 acre Mound Key. The Calusa were eventually wiped out by slavery and diseases with the last of the Calusas moving to Cuba in the early 1700's where they died off with no known descendants.

After the demise of the Calusa, the first Europeans settlers on Estero Island were fishermen from Cuba. They lived on and fished the waters around the area until the United States took control of Florida in 1821. The next settlers on the mound were US citizens who arrived beginning in 1890. The first land claim was by Robert Gilbert in 1893 who lived on the mound until the early 1900's. He sold the property to the Koreshan's, a communal group led by a charismatic figure named Cyrus "Koresh" Teed. The Koreshans then sold it to William and Milia Case in 1909. The Case's first built a one-room kitchen/social area structure in 1906 while living on their houseboat. In 1909, it was enlarged by the Cases into a bungalow into which they moved. In 1921 William Case sold the property and house to a local developer by the name of Jack DeLysle. He enlarged the house significantly over that summer but abandoned it after the October 1921 hurricane passed over Estero Island. The house was mostly empty until the James Foundation purchased it in 1947 for use in researching uses for local fish and plant life. It was owned by the foundation until the death of Robert James in 1950 after  which time it was sold William and Florence Long. Mr. Long developed all but 2.66 acres of the 24 acre property into the Shell Mound subdivision. After his death in 1965, his widow continued to live in the Mound House until her passing in 1994.

With the death of Florence Long, her heirs put the property up for sale for a price of $1.5 million. In 1996, the newly created town of Fort Myers Beach became interested in acquiring the property for use as a museum and cultural center. Even though the new town did not have the funds to purchase the property, town leaders were able to obtain a grant from the state of Florida for $1 million that same year which enabled the Town to purchase the property. Because of a series of legal issues with property, the town was not actually close on the property until 2000, but had been able to lease it in 1998 and organize tours of the property.

After the actual closing on the Mound House in 2000, the Town of Fort Myers began making plans to restore the house to it's 1921 form by taking out a number of additions made by the Long's. This included removing an in-ground swimming pool, a caretaker's cottage, and a carport along with all the furniture left by Mrs. Long. The removal of the pool opened the opportunity to create an underground museum room inside the shell mound which displays archaeological excavations and the layers of shell and debris that make up the mound. The original kitchen was reconstructed and turned into a museum shop and ticket office. The parlor of the 1909 house was furnished with period antiques and the upstairs rooms were converted to museum rooms dedicated to the Calusa and early settlers. The Mound House now offers both guided and unguided tours as well outdoor activities including kayak tours.