Fort Myers' past is written in streets and stone
Fort Myers wears its history on the surface if you know where to look. A single boulevard, a limestone wall, even a grove of trees can tell stories that textbooks left out.
Much of what shaped the city happened far from headlines. The legacy lingers in unexpected ways, leaving behind markers you may have walked by countless times without pause.
The avenue that named a city
McGregor Boulevard's long row of royal palms helped fix Fort Myers' nickname, "City of Palms."
In 1907, Thomas Edison began planting royal palms along what was then Riverside Avenue, an effort that later stretched into the thousands of trees.
The boulevard became a showpiece route linking downtown to the inventor's winter estate on the Caloosahatchee River.
Today, the palms still frame one of the most recognizable drives in town, and local histories and the Edison & Ford Winter Estates both credit Edison's plantings with the nickname.
McGregor's palm-lined look remains a touchstone in city branding and walking tours that trace early 20th-century growth.
A parade of lights since 1938
Fort Myers' Edison Festival of Light dates to 1938 and continues each winter with a wave of community events.
The festival grew from the city's ties to Edison, who wintered here for decades, and now includes a night parade, road race, STEM fairs, and other programs tied to education and youth groups.
The organization's own history places the festival as a post-Depression era tradition that began after Edison's death and endured as a lasting tribute to his legacy.
For locals and visitors, the calendar is a map to downtown streets after dark, with illuminated floats rolling past buildings that also date to Edison's time.
Manatees that arrive with a cold snap
Manatee Park in Fort Myers is a non-captive warm-water refuge where visitors can watch wild manatees congregate during the coolest months.
Lee County's park page notes that the best viewing is typically late December through February, when Gulf temperatures dip below 68°F and manatees seek the warmer outflow nearby.
The boardwalks keep people at a distance, and the park posts seasonal notes on water temps and viewing tips.
It's not an aquarium or lagoon; it's a vantage point on a natural behavior, tied to winter weather and the animals' sensitivity to cold.
Outside the winter window, the canals can be quiet.
A banyan that spreads like a city block
The Edison & Ford Winter Estates feature one of the largest banyan trees in the continental United States.
Brought in as part of Edison's plant experiments, the banyan has spread to cover nearly an acre, according to historical markers and local publications.
The tree's wide canopy, prop roots and all, turns a corner of the grounds into a shaded maze.
It's become a reference point in estate maps, garden tours, and even seasonal climbing demonstrations run by staff during special events.
The tree is not simply ornamental; it's a living artifact from the years when Fort Myers doubled as a working lab for Edison's botanical projects.
A Green Monster with seats inside the wall
JetBlue Park at Fenway South, the Red Sox spring home in Fort Myers, was designed with Fenway Park's field dimensions and a left-field wall inspired by the Green Monster.
Unlike Boston's single 37-foot structure, the Florida version rises in two sections to meet hurricane wind-code requirements: a lower "mid-Monster" at about 23 feet, built with three rows of seats tucked behind protective netting, and an upper extension reaching nearly 43 feet.
The wall also features a hand-operated scoreboard, a direct nod to the original in Boston.
The result blends familiar Fenway sight lines with details unique to Southwest Florida - including the chance to watch a game from inside the wall itself.
The lab that tested 17,000 plants
Worried about foreign rubber supplies, Thomas Edison launched the Edison Botanical Research Corporation in 1927, building a lab in Fort Myers to study plant-based latex.
Working with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone, he and his team tested more than 17,000 plant samples.
Goldenrod emerged as the best option, and Edison even bred a tall variety to boost latex yield.
Museum records and newspaper archives lay out the project's scope and goals, which ran into the mid-1930s.
Although synthetic rubber later took hold, the Fort Myers lab remains open to visitors, a preserved workroom where this crash effort to grow an industrial material took shape on benches and scales.
A federal building with shells in the walls
Downtown's Sidney & Berne Davis Art Center occupies a 1933 Neoclassical Revival building originally used as a federal post office and courthouse.
The building features two unusual construction details: massive Keys limestone columns out front and walls embedded with coral formations and seashells.
Walk up close, and you can see the marine textures in the stone.
Today, the halls host concerts, exhibitions, and classes; the exterior remains a photo stop, partly because it looks like a temple facing the river.
The combination of New Deal-era architecture and a contemporary arts schedule anchors the eastern end of the River District.
A planetarium tucked into a pine forest
The Calusa Nature Center & Planetarium sits on 105 acres inside Fort Myers and pairs a live-animal education center with a 44-foot-diameter, 90-seat planetarium theater.
The facility opened in 1970 and today runs daily talks, rotating dome shows, and quarterly evening laser programs, along with trails, a butterfly house, and a raptor aviary for birds that can't be released.
It's an unusual combination under one roof: astronomy and Southwest Florida ecology presented steps away from slash pines and a boardwalk.
A 190-mile paddling route that runs through town
The Great Calusa Blueway is a marked 190-mile paddling trail lacing through Lee County's coastal waters and inland river.
One of its three segments runs up the Caloosahatchee and its tributaries, right through Fort Myers, using brown-and-white signs to guide kayakers away from motorboat channels.
The route was named for the Calusa people and ties together preserves, bay shallows, and backwater creeks.
From the city's launch spots, you can head upriver into oxbows or downstream toward the open estuary, all on a path that exists for small craft.
The airport that started as a would-be golf course
Page Field (FMY) dates to the 1920s and is still the general-aviation airport for Fort Myers.
The Lee County Port Authority says it has served local aviation since 1926, while a News-Press roundup notes the city bought the land in 1924 for a golf course and turned it into an airport by 1927.
Over the decades, Page Field has shifted roles, and commercial flights moved to RSW, but it remains busy with flight schools, charter operations, and maintenance businesses.
A wartime airfield that trained gunners by the thousands
Ten miles east of town, Buckingham Army Air Field trained aerial gunners during World War II.
Built in 1942, the base expanded quickly, adding runways and an "eight-star" parking ramp.
Historical summaries and county documents describe an operation that graduated roughly 48,000 gunners before closing in September 1945.
Today, parts of the former base fall within Wild Turkey Strand Preserve, but the wartime footprint, drainage canals, foundations, and old road alignments still show up in maps and aerials.
For a few intense years, Fort Myers wasn't just a quiet winter refuge; it was a hub for a very specific kind of flight training.