Marco Island

Daily News staff

Beginning with the Calusa Indians a few thousand years ago and continuing through the early pioneers and settlers, there was something special about Marco Island.

The island, which was farmed at one time and home to two clam canneries and a pineapple packing plant, has evolved into a popular tourist and convention destination as well as a retirement haven.

The largest and northernmost of the Ten Thousand Islands, Marco can thank the Calusas for its initial notoriety. A variety of artifacts, dug up by the pioneers who came hundreds of years later, as well as other digs have revealed important archaeological data unlike any other Calusa site that has been excavated in North America. The Calusa are believed to have lived in Florida at least 2,000 years before the birth of Christ.

Years later, some of Spain's most acclaimed navigators were looking for adventure and personal wealth on the pristine shores of La Florida.

It was a search for fresh water - not buried treasure - that apparently led Juan Ponce de Leon to make a stop near the southern end of Marco. Ponce de Leon, who was a companion of Christopher Columbus, led the first European exploration of Florida from Puerto Rico in 1513.

After rounding the Florida Keys, he is believed to have made landfall on or near Caxambas at the southern end of the island where the Estates area is now located.

Two artesian springs were located near what is now known as Caxambas Pass. But the area had already been discovered by the Calusa Indians who lived in the hills at Caxambas atop mounds made of discarded shells and in huts over the water at present-day Old Marco village.

The island's name is credited to the Spaniards. It became known as La Isla de San Marco (the island of Saint Mark) and was named for St. Mark, the author of the second gospel in the Bible. It was called San Marco Island and referred to by other names (Maco, Malco, Marco village and Key Marco) and then Marco Island.

William Thomas (W.T.) Collier, who was not related to land baron Barron G. Collier, is credited with founding Marco when he came to the island in 1870. The Colliers, including son Capt. Bill - farmer, businessman, inventor and Marco's first postmaster - along with the Barfields and Doxsees, were among the prominent pioneer families on the island.

By the early 1920s, Barron Collier would make his mark on Southwest Florida in a big way by purchasing more than 1 million acres. The purchase included 90 percent of the island, which he and his heirs planned to develop. However, the Depression and Barron's death sidetracked those plans.

What the Collier family could not accomplish, the Mackle brothers - Frank Jr., Elliott and Robert - did in developing the island from the ground up.

The Collier heirs initially attempted to sell Marco to the state as a nature preserve, but Florida turned them down. After the Colliers approached the Mackles to develop Marco, it took almost two years to work out an agreement. The $7 million deal for the six-mile long and four-mile wide island was finalized in 1964.

A grand opening was held Jan. 31, 1965.

Since then, the island's permanent population has grown to approximately 13,000 residents. The population more than doubles during the winter when seasonal residents and tourists flock to the island.

Community leaders have been working for more than a year to prepare a growth management plan for the island when it will have more than 25,000 full-time residents, which is expected to occur in less than 25 years.

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