Roof Inspection in Boca Grande, FL

Gasparilla Island’s first known inhabitants were the Calusa people. They were living on nearby Useppa Island by 5,000 B.C. and on Gasparilla Island by 800 or 900 A.D. Charlotte Harbor was the center of the Calusa Empire, which numbered thousands of people and hundreds of fishing villages. The Calusa were a hunting and fishing people who perfected the art of maritime living in harmony with the environment. They were a politically powerful people, dominating Southwest Florida during their “golden age”. Since the Calusa had no written language, the only record of their lifestyle and ceremonies comes from the oral history of the (much later) Seminoles, from written accounts of Spanish explorers, and from the archaeological record. The first contact the Calusa had with Europeans came during Spanish explorations at the beginning of the 16th century. By the mid-18th century, the Calusa had all but disappeared, the victims of European diseases, slavery and warfare.

Just like the Calusa, the next settlers came to Gasparilla Island to fish. By the late 1870s several fish ranches were operating in the Charlotte Harbor area. One of them would later be at the north end of Gasparilla Island in the small village of Gasparilla. The fishermen, many of them Spanish or Cuban, caught large quantities of mullet and other fish and salted them down for shipment to Havana and other markets. In the 1940s the Gasparilla Fishery was moved to Placida across the bay, where it still stands, and the fishing village died out. Many of Boca Grande’s early fishing families are still represented in third-, fourth- and fifth-generation descendants who pursue many different vocations, including fishing.

In 1885, phosphate rock was discovered on the banks of the Peace River just above Punta Gorda, east of Gasparilla Island across Charlotte Harbor. It was this discovery that would turn the south end of Gasparilla Island into a major deep-water port (Boca Grande Pass is one of the deepest natural inlets in Florida) and become responsible for the development of the town of Boca Grande. Wealthy American and British sportsmen began discovering the Charlotte Harbor area for its fishing (notably for the world-class tarpon) and hunting. It was these two discoveries – phosphate rock and fishing – that would “put Boca Grande on the map”.