Roof Replacement in Punta Rassa, FL

The location was named Punta Rasca (Spanish for “smooth or flat point” and later corrupted to “Punta Rassa”) by the Spanish Conquistadors in the mid-16th century, who unloaded cattle in the area.

By the middle of the 18th century fishermen from Cuba had established permanent fishing stations, called ranchos, along the southwest Florida coast from Tampa Bay to San Carlos Bay. The Spanish Cubans would stay in Florida from September until March drying and salting fish caught along the coast to supply Havana. Indians living in the area, possibly Calusa at first, and later Seminole, worked seasonally at the ranchos, staying on in the area during the off-season. Dr. Benjamin Strobel visited a rancho at Punta Rassa in 1833, where he found ten or so wood-framed houses. “Ponte Rasa” was named as a “rancho” in an 1835 letter from William Buner (presumably William Bunce) to Wiley Thompson.

Between 1835 and 1842, and again between 1855 and 1858, Punta Rassa was in the theater of war during the Seminole Wars. As a result, Fort Dulany (also spelled “Dulaney”, “Delany” and “Delaney”) was built there in 1837 as an army supply depot, with a hospital. The fort was abandoned the next year, and then re-occupied in 1841, when it was used to hold Seminole prisoners before they were sent west to the Indian Territory. A hurricane destroyed Fort Dulany in October 1841. Army operations were moved up the Caloosahatchee River to a site named Fort Harvie. Fort Harvie was abandoned in 1842. After a white trader was killed by Seminoles on the Peace River in 1849, the Army returned to the Caloosahatchee River in 1850. The new Fort Myers was built on the burned ruins of Fort Harvie. Fort Dulany was reopened during the Third Seminole War, in 1856, and then closed again in 1858.