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Sanibel Island, Florida

Harbour Lights GLOW Edition #429

The picturesque islands along the coast of Florida have a rich history of remarkable settlers, warm waters and tropical beauty. Some 5,000 years ago, native members of the Calusa tribe first inhabited what we now call Sanibel Island. Their numbers were devastated by the diseases brought to the new world by Spanish explorers. 

Pirates soon took up residence along the sandy beaches, awaiting the chance to attach passing merchant vessels. It is rumored that Henri Caesar ("Black Caesar"), once took control of Sanibel Island. After the government cleared the gulf coast of the threat of pirates, colonists began to stake their claim, farming the lands, fishing the waters, and establishing homesteads.

Early pioneers petitioned the federal government to build a lighthouse on the island in 1833. But politics and other difficulties postponed action for over twenty years. Finally a lighthouse was fabricated in New Jersey and sent by ship to Sanibel. The ship wrecked just two miles from Sanibel Island. A diving crew salvaged the majority of the pieces and construction began and the tower and two keeper's quarters were completed in 1884.

The lighthouse often served as a refuge for locals seeking safe shelter from the forceful hurricanes that lashed at the island from time to time.

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Other Sanibel FL Editions
HL 194 Sanibel Island Limited Edition

Photographs © Harbour Lights by Paul L. Brady
December 13, 2001