Naples: history and heritage

About Naples: history and heritage

By the ULTIMATE Naples Editorial Team

Editor-in-Chief: Jai Michael

Naples is a small city with a long coastline and a short written history. For centuries this coast belonged to the Calusa; the town was founded only in the 1880s by investors from Kentucky, named for the Italian city whose bay theirs seemed to rival, and reached by road only in 1928.

At a glance

Population: 19,115 in the City of Naples and 375,752 in Collier County (US Census Bureau, 2020 Census).

Peoples: the Calusa before European contact; today many winter residents from the Midwest, the Northeast and Canada.

Named for a bay its founders thought could rival the Bay of Naples.

Shaped by: the Calusa, Spanish Florida, the town founders of the 1880s, the railroad (1927) and the Tamiami Trail (1928).

The Calusa

The Calusa ruled south-west Florida for centuries, building shell mounds and canals and living from the sea rather than farming. They resisted the Spanish, but disease and war had all but destroyed them by the eighteenth century. Shell mounds survive in the region, and the Naples Depot and Collier County museums tell their story.

A town of the 1880s

In the 1880s the Kentucky newspaper owner Walter Haldeman and his partners bought land here and promoted it as a winter resort. Comparing the bay to the Bay of Naples, they named the town after the Italian city.

The pier

The Naples Pier was built in 1888 to land visitors and freight arriving by boat, and has been rebuilt after storms several times. It is still the town’s favourite place to watch the sunset.

Road and rail

In the 1920s the businessman Barron Collier bought much of the region, Collier County was created in 1923, and the railroad reached Naples in 1927. The Tamiami Trail, the road from Tampa to Miami through the Everglades, opened in 1928. The restored Naples Depot of 1927 now houses a museum.

Naples today

After the Second World War Naples grew into a town of winter residents and retirees, with Old Naples, Fifth Avenue South and Third Street South at its heart, and the Everglades and the Ten Thousand Islands on its doorstep.

Our advice: visit the Naples Depot Museum in the morning, walk Third Street South and Fifth Avenue, and be on the pier for sunset.

Sources

Population: US Census Bureau, 2020 Census. History: Collier County Museums (Naples Depot Museum); City of Naples; Florida Department of State, Division of Historical Resources.

Opening hours, prices and seasonal openings change, so please check with Naples: history and heritage before you go.