The Marjory Stoneman Douglas Visitor Center is both the new gateway into Everglades National Park and the final sign that Everglades City has recovered from a devastating blow from Hurricane Irma nearly nine years ago.
Hurricane Irma swallowed this iconic city in September 2017 with more than 6 feet of storm surge. Nearly every building in town was damaged, and roughly 100 were destroyed. Now, the last reminder of that destruction is gone.
The visitor center — named for the writer and activist whose decades of advocacy helped focus the nation's attention on the importance and wonder of the River of Grass — is elevated to withstand 15-foot storm surges and strengthened to handle 175-mph winds. It’s part of a $50 million new complex that includes a marina, a watersports rental shop offering pontoon boat rides, and parking.
Douglas spent decades fighting for the Everglades at a time when draining it was considered progress. Her 1947 book, "The Everglades: River of Grass," reframed the vast wetland not as wasteland but as a living ecosystem worth protecting. Her advocacy continued until she died in 1998 at age 108.
After raking Everglades City, Hurricane Irma made a second Florida landfall on Marco Island as a Category 3. In Lee County, wind gusts hit 89 mph, more than 24,000 homes were damaged, and total losses reached roughly $857 million. Charlotte County suffered $60 million in damages, according to NOAA.
“There are no other Everglades in the world."-- First sentence of Marjory Stoneman Douglas' 1947 epic "Everglades: The River of Grass"
Everglades City, population 400 or so, bills itself as the gateway to the Ten Thousand Islands. The town has barely grown in nearly 150 years, and is still in lockstep with commercial fishing and stone crab harvesting. Its brand of Old Florida wildness draws visitors from around the world.
The visitor’s center leads into the national park, where there are primitive campsites, mangrove-lined estuaries, fantastic bird watching, and open Gulf water that looks as it did a century ago.
The new complex includes Everglades National Park Adventures, a private vendor offering pontoon boat tours into the Ten Thousand Islands as well as kayak, canoe, and bicycle rentals.
Pedro Ramos, superintendent of the Everglades and Dry Tortugas National Parks in Florida, said Stoneman Douglas’ iconic first sentence from her 1947 book to begin and end the ribbon cutting for the visitor center now bearing her name, fittingly, in the southern, rather untouched, portion of the River of Grass:
“There are no other Everglades in the world."
Environmental reporting for WGCU is funded in part by VoLo Foundation, a nonprofit with a mission to accelerate change and global impact by supporting science-based climate solutions, enhancing education, and improving health.
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