Local History

Community of all ages invited to take a trip down memory lane with LaBelle's centennial celebration Saturday.

Florida is the land of sunshine and good vibes, but when the sun goes down on Downtown Fort Myers, something ghastly takes over. The waterside community is home to spiritual abnormalities that have caused spine-tingling reactions for decades.WGCU’s Samuel Brucker took part in a Historic Downtown Tour to learn the horrific stories that have turned into urban legend and have given a taste of the macabre to Southwest Florida.

Three years ago, Hurricane Ian blew the roof off the historic Blanchard House in Punta Gorda. Swells of water flooded the structure, leaving damage that took years to recover from.

It’s time to hit the road with Scott Fais as he prepares to take viewers on a journey as part of the latest season of Florida Road Trip.

A historic school in Southwest Florida will be remodeled and is expected to reopen in just over two years. That's according to an agreement announced Monday between the Lee County School District and the City of Bonita Springs.

Between 2004 and September of 2022, local historian Gerri Reaves wrote a weekly column for The River Weekly News. Most of her articles traced the occupancy of Fort Myers’ historic buildings. She shared some of those stories last week with members of the Southwest Florida Historical Society during a presentation she titled “Scenes from Downtown History.” Her pithy observations prompted several members to ask how to go about preserving her writings and research for posterity.

Seven descendants of former U.S. presidents will speak in front of a live audience at the Harry S. Truman White House in Key West as a part of weekend activities to celebrate the presidency.

In this installment from the StoryCorps Mobile Tour visit to Fort Myers in March 2024, we hear former CEO of the Dr. Piper Center Melissa Bonner and Shavon Chester, a member of the Center’s Board of Directors talk about the remarkable life, work and legacy of Dr. Ella Mae Piper, and the center’s ongoing social services outreach.

"In my life, I have found myself as a colored, a negro, a Black, an African American, and a person of color. This is my reflection as a colored girl." This phrase opens each essay heard on WGCU FM from Martha R. Bireda, Ph.D. Dr. Bireda is a writer, lecturer, and living history performer with over 30 years of experience as a lecturer, consultant and trainer for issues related to race, class, and gender, working with educators, law enforcement, and business, and civic leaders. Bireda also is the Director of the Blanchard House Museum of African American History and Culture of Charlotte County, located in Punta Gorda, Florida. The audio series, "Reflections of a Colored Girl," will be featured weekly on WGCU FM for the next five months. This is the first.

The city of Fort Myers went through a dramatic metamorphosis in the early 20th century from a largely frontier cow town to a thriving metropolitan center…