The official date for Lee County’s birth is May 9, 1887, but the story really began a year earlier when the area’s only school house burned to the ground. 

A delegation was sent by boat on what would have speculatively been a roughly week-long journey to the county seat in Key West to request funds to rebuild. 

“And if you had to go to Key West on business, you went down there at your own expense,” said President of the Southwest Florida Historical Society Gerri Reaves.  “And to be away from your business, your farm, your family, and then to not be greeted too well by the supposedly local government; that was too much to put up with.”

The request for funds to rebuild the school house was met with a resounding denial. 

“It was also the insult, I think, of not only do we not have the money,” said Reaves.  “We’re very sorry, but if you let your school house burn down, that’s just tough.  You really build it back at your own expense.  So I think that’s what really got them going.”

Fed up with the distance and not reaping the benefits of their own tax dollars, residents petitioned the state legislature to form Lee County and it was approved a year later.   

The historic anniversary is being commemorated with free parking at county beaches, regional parks and boat ramps.  For more information and history on the 125^th anniversary celebration visit http://www.leegov.com/125th/Pages/default.aspx