Photo courtesy of the Collier County Museum, permanent collection

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Today, May 8, is Collier County’s 85th birthday.

Backed by Barron Collier’s personal pledge to complete the Tamiami Trail, Florida Gov. Carey A. Hardee signed Collier County into law on May 8, 1923.

Collier, third from the left in the photograph above, owned nearly 80 percent of the new county.

Collier County was still little more than a courageous dream in the early spring of 1923.

The tiny hamlets at Naples, Marco, Immokalee, Everglade and Chokoloskee had been part of southern Lee County for 36 years, yet still lacked the necessary ingredient for growth and change — roads.

With assessed property values that “scarcely justified recording,” commissioners in far-off Fort Myers had voted to build just 20 miles of primitive roads in the whole area. The Tamiami Trail remained an imaginary line across the Everglades.

Already a veteran of speculation, Collier, in his own quiet way, offered to risk his personal millions to open up a new county on Florida’s last frontier. “I realize that I have a great task ahead of me,” he explained at the time. “But I have set my heart to that task.”

Not everyone liked the idea. Many objected to breaking off almost a third of the largest county east of the Mississippi. Others felt it was an insult to the memory of their county’s namesake, Confederate hero Robert E. Lee.

Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, both winter residents of Fort Myers, strongly opposed the creation of Collier’s new county, warning state legislators that future growth and development in the area would suffer from splitting up Lee County.

But Tallahassee took a chance on the New York businessman and on May 8, 1923, the 19th regular session of the state Legislature officially created Florida’s 62nd county, Collier County.

To commemorate the event, the Collier County Museum has created a photo gallery of all present and past county commissioners in the Harmon Turner Building at the Government Center. Five frames still remain empty and the museum would appreciate help in finding images of the following “missing” commissioners: Jack T. Taylor (1923-25), Fred Philips (1925), F.C. Morgan (1927), E.B. Nichols (1942) and William H. Doub (1961-65).

If you can help, please call the museum at 252-8476.