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| The historic Mound House on Fort Myers Beach. MARC BEAUDIN/The News-Press |
Calusa Indians punched holes in these ark shells and used them as net weights. Florida Gulf Coast University archaeologists and volunteers found 190 net weights in an excavation pit near the Mound House on Fort Myers Beach. The find indicates the Calusa used the site to clean and mend nets. MARK HUME/The News-Press |
Discover mound's secrets
Archaeologists will open one of the most significant Calusa Indian mounds to the public later this month. The Estero Island site was first occupied at least 2,000 years ago.
By KEVIN LOLLAR
klollar@news-press.com
A real mixed bag of folks have participated in the 2,000-year history of the bayside shell mound on what is now Estero Island's Connecticut Street.
The historic Mound House on Fort Myers Beach. MARC BEAUDIN/The News-Press
Calusa Indians, Spanish missionaries (maybe), Cuban fishermen, homesteaders, a group of scientists and inventors, even a forger who tried to steal the property in an elaborate swindle.
Beginning later this month — no date has been set — Florida Gulf Coast University archaeologists Theresa Schober and Corbett Torrence will open the property for tours dealing with the site's archaeology, ecology, and history.
Plans for the site, commonly known as the Mound House, include a lecture series on archaeological discoveries at the site.
"Traditionally, they've only done house tours on Wednesdays and Saturdays; our idea is to expand the attraction," Schober said. "We don't want people to have only a single thing to do. We want them to see the different aspects of what there is to learn out here."
Based on radiocarbon dating, archaeologists know that Calusa Indians lived on the site as early as 200 B.C., though Torrence cautioned that excavations haven't reached the bottom of the 15-foot-tall mound, so first occupation could be earlier.
IF YOU GO
WHAT: Free guided and self-guided archaeological, ecological and historical tours of the Mound House.
WHEN: Mound House tours will be given every hour from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturdays and Wednesdays starting Oct. 12. Call 765-0865 if you plan to take a tour.
WHERE: The Fort Myers Beach Cultural Museum and Environmental Learning Center, 289 Connecticut St.
TO HELP
The Fort Myers Beach Cultural Museum and Environmental Learning Center needs docents to lead archaeological, ecological and historical tours of the Mound House property. The docents will also be trained in history and ecology by staff at the J. N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge and Koreshan State Historic Site. Call 765-0865.
Time line for Mound House site
At about the same time, the locals were building Mound Key in Estero Bay, thought by many to be the Calusa capital.
Why these first settlers chose the Mound House site remains a mystery.
Maybe Mound Key got too crowded, Torrence said.
"If you have too many people in one place, you deplete the resources — you have to walk farther for firewood," he said. "If you move, you want to move someplace close enough to maintain contact but not so close as to compete for resources."
But why that spot? For one thing, the Calusa built on the bay rather than the Gulf because getting food from the bay was easier; for another, the site is about midway down the island — archaeologists think the Calusa also built on the north and south ends.
"Another thing about this site," Torrence said, "you can stand outside and look southeast all the way down the pass. The wind comes out of the pass, and it's beautiful. Sometimes people choose a place to live because it's just plain beautiful."
Signs of life
Calusas lived on the Mound house site until 600 A.D.
Curiously, between 600 and 1350, the site was only occasionally used, and nobody lived on the mound.
Discoveries of large numbers of Calusa net weights and shell-opening tools indicate that the Calusa used the north end of the site to clean or mend nets and process shellfish.
Another interesting find at the north end was a handful of shell hammers that are too small and fragile to have been useful tools.
Calusa Indians punched holes in these ark shells and used them as net weights. Florida Gulf Coast University archaeologists and volunteers found 190 net weights in an excavation pit near the Mound House on Fort Myers Beach. The find indicates the Calusa used the site to clean and mend nets. MARK HUME/The News-Press
" I wrote them down as toys," Schober said. "They were adorable. Little perfect lightning-whelk hammers, but their ends were barely worn, and they were so small. There's no reason to assume they weren't toys. Everybody plays with stuff."
Jesuit priest Juan Rogel established a mission in 1567 at the Calusa capital, but the Calusa weren't the converting kind, and tensions rose between the two cultures.
So the Spaniards fled, according to Rogel's letters, across a deep channel to a sandy island.
A glass bead of a style made only in the 16th and 17th centuries suggests the Spaniards might have set up shop at the Mound House site.
By the middle of the 18th century, the Calusa had disappeared; from the 1760s to the 1880s, Cuban fishermen used the site as a fish camp.
Beginning in the 1880s, a series of American families owned the property.
Usurper strikes
William Case built the first permanent home on the mound in 1906 — the Mound House is the oldest structure on Estero Island.
The Case family used the structure as a kitchen area and lived on a houseboat until 1912, when they added living quarters to the house.
A strange chapter in the site's history was written between 1947 and 1951: The property became the The Shell Mound Experiment Station, and scientists and inventers conducted "scientific research for better business in citrus, fish packing, food processing, pharmaceuticals, sugar refining and all biological industries."
Stranger still was Bokeelia resident Gerald A. Thomas' attempt in 1997 to steal the property, which had been owned by the Long family since 1951.
Thomas and two accomplices traveled to Chicago, where one accomplice posed as a flower delivery man and got the husband of the Long family representative to sign for a bouquet.
Using the signature, Thomas forged papers that transferred the Mound House property to his name; then he kicked out the home's elderly caretaker and moved in.
Naturally, the family filed suit, and in 1999, Thomas pleaded guilty to fraud and was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
In 2000, the Longs sold the property to Fort Myers Beach.
Now, after two millennia of almost continuous occupation, the Mound House property is officially known as The Fort Myers Beach Cultural Museum and Environmental Learning Center.
"What's neat about this place is the 2,000-year history of the people who used it," Torrence said. "There's so much history here. It's so diverse, and it's all interesting. There's not a boring part to the story."
TIME LINE FOR MOUND HOUSE SITE
10,000 B.C.: Sea level was 260 feet lower than today; Gulf beaches were 100 miles west of what is now Fort Myers Beach.
3500 B.C.: Modern sea level established.
3000-2500 B.C.: Estero Island formed.
200 B.C.-700 A.D.: Mound House site used intensively by native peoples.
700-1350: North end of site used as a place to clean and mend nets.
Mid-17th century: Possible temporary Spanish camp
1760s to 1880s: Cuban fishermen used the site, probably as seasonal fish camps.
1870s: Sam Ellis lived on the mound, probably in palm-thatched hut.
1875: Estero Island surveyed, platted and opened for homesteading.
1889: Robert Burton Gilbert became first legal claimant to lots on Estero Island; he claimed 171.85 acres, which included the mound.
1905-1906: William H. Case built a Tudor-style bungalow on the mound — historians aren't sure who owned the mound at this point.
July 17, 1909: Robert Burnhardt Gilbert (Robert Burton Gilbert's son) deeded the property to the Koreshan Unity.
Oct. 22, 1909: Koreshan Unity sold to Case. The property was owned by the Case family until 1946.
1946: Development company Ostego Bay Corp. bought the property but never developed it.
1947: Robert F. James bought the property and established the Shell Mound Experiment Station.
1951: William H. Long bought the property and made additions to house, including a swimming pool. The property was owned by the Long family for almost 50 years.
1997: Forger Gerald A. Thomas tried to steal the Mound House.
2000: Long family sold the property to Fort Myers Beach.
