Plants and Progress

Plants and Progress. . It is hard to imagine now, but when the earliest settlers arrived on the Mound the surrounding habitat was very different. Native plants dominated the landscape. Years would pass before the Estero Island settlers could profit from agriculture pursuits., A Case of Fruit From the Case Grove , By the early 1900s, settlers were raising tropical fruit crops with some success. The coastal hammock, or hardwood tree grove, west of the mound was converted into orchards and fields. This is where William and Milia Case raised figs, bananas, grapefruits, mangos, papayas, tomatoes, and limes. They likely sold their fruits to local markets., Fort Myers Cash Crop , Farming was a predominant industry on the island as well as on the mainland. Many farmers experimented by growing a wide variety of produce including grapes, oranges, avocados, grapefruits, pineapples, sapodillas, coconuts, and peaches. Eventually grapefruit emerged as the leading cash crop in the Fort Myers area. By 1915, statewide citrus production reached 10 million boxes a year., Walk Through the Garden of History , A you walk along the paths of the Mound House site, look for a variety of tropical fruit trees. While the Case family planted similar botanicals, these are newly planted to show the diversity of the crops grown on the setter’s properties over the past 100 years.