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Photo courtesy of Prudence Foster.
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Fort Myers was the 1850 reconstruction of the former Fort Harvie, built on the Caloosahatchee River in 1841 to wage war against the Seminoles. Named for Colonel Abraham C. Myers, the fort boasted more than 50 buildings and a 1,000-foot wharf in the area that is now downtown Fort Myers, bounded roughly by contemporary Hough, Monroe, and Second streets. The army abandoned the fort in 1858 and reoccupied it briefly in 1859. U.S. troops occupied Fort Myers in 1863, using it as a post for supplying beef to federal gunboats patrolling the coast during the Civil War. After the war, locals broke down the fort in search of scarce building materials. A marker on the present Federal Building commemorates the fort.
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