This week marks the 125^th anniversary of the founding of Lee County.  Before that time, the city of Fort Myers had been incorporated in 1885 with just 349 residents in what was then Monroe County.

 



The last surviving FBI agent present at the autopsy of President John F. Kennedy has died. With James Sibert, goes one more account of how the 35th president was assassinated. A memorial service was held Saturday in Fort Myers.

Using the latest radar technology, archaeologists and volunteers have located unmarked graves at an historic cemetery in Naples – without disturbing the remains. WGCU’s Jenny Tavery was there and has this report.

A new exhibit which chronicles the wartime escape of the husband and wife team who brought Curious George to life comes to the Holocaust Museum and Education Center of SW Florida in Naples Thursday, February 3, and runs through March 10. 2011.Valarie Edwards Reports.

New College of Florida presents a lecture titled “Five Years of Looking for Angola: A Retrospective on the Journey and Future Paths to Explore,” on Saturday in Sarasota. Valarie Edwards reports.

In commemoration of the 72nd anniversary of Kristallnacht, the FGCU Center for Judaic, Holocaust and Human Rights Studies welcomed one of the world’s leading Holocaust experts to campus on Monday. WGCU’s Amy Tardif reports.

Work is underway at the Edison & Ford Winter Estates in Ft. Myers to restore the Botanic Research Laboratory. WGCU’s Valerie Alker reports.

A different take on Naples history was recently published in the form of a memoir titled “The East Side of the River” by Jessie Allen Chesser.  Chesser was born in East Naples in 1935.  She’s descended from pioneers who farmed and fished in Belle Meade, now part of greater Naples.  Her book is dotted with family photos from the turn of the last century, up to the mid 1950’s when Jesse was a popular athlete at Naples High School.  She says despite social divisions, Naples was a fun place to grow up – the kind of place where the girl scout troop camped out on the beach.

Yesterday, reporter Katie Pankow brought you the story of the beginnings of a unique settlement in Estero, Florida in the late 1800's. Her story “Living Inside: Koreshan Unity” continues today, as part of a series called "Florida: Heaven on Earth?" airing on Thursday & Friday mornings for the several weeks.

In the late 1800s, Estero, Florida was home to a thriving and revolutionary community of people who believed they lived inside the earth.  These were the Koreshans.  Katie Pankow has more about this unique chapter in Southwest Florida history, in the first in a series of reports called “Florida: Heaven on Earth?”