No one visits Chokoloskee for the nightlife and city lights. During the warmer months particularly, there is some “evening life” as kids pedal bicycles around town with carefree abandon. But don’t expect a fancy cocktail or even a good dinner unless you are prepared to drive a few miles and leave the island.
Well, on second thought, you may be able to find a good dinner, if you appear to be decent and hungry enough. People tend to be that kind of friendly on Florida’s Gulf Coast Southernmost Point.
Just past Naples, take exit 80 off Alligator Alley and onto State Road 29 for a two-lane stretch of asphalt that will transport you not only to a different time but almost a different planet. Suddenly you are in an area where the Wednesday Ladies Coffee Group has adopted a stretch of the highway and where the Panther Crossing signs have rumble strips on the highway to help distracted motorists realize they are driving through an area where endangered, unique-to-Florida big cats like to cross the road. By the time you reach the end of that road, you are on the edge of the Everglades and the Ten Thousand Islands region. You are on an island known as Chokoloskee, famous for a 109-year-old store known as the Smallwood Store.
It is hard to imagine what brought Ted Smallwood, a tomato farmer and entrepreneur, to this small, alligator and mosquito-infested corner of the world back in 1906. Back then, he would have had to make his way through swamps and muddy-mangrove waters to simply get to the island. It wasn’t until 1956 that a bridge was even built, six years after Mr. Smallwood’s death. Until then, the only way to get to the island and the Smallwood Store was by boat.
But somehow, perhaps through integrity, trust and luck, the store prospered. In 1917, he moved it out of his home and into a stilt house, a rough-hewn place of wood that still stands today. The store became the post office for the area, and remained so for decades to come.
By 1982, the world had changed and the store closed. Less than a decade later, Smallwood’s granddaughter would reopen it, largely as a museum. In doing so, she opened the door on a time capsule.
Ted Smallwood probably never knew the pleasures of air conditioning, and his store remains unadorned with such. There is a window literally off the bay of islands, with an old-time cash register, that is said to be the place Ted favored. The breeze funnels in, as natural as an air conditioning system can be. Inside is a treasure-trove of antiques, with some shelves appearing as though Ted himself may have last stocked them.
In Ted’s time, the store became the center of the area. There were Native Americans, sugar farmers and other pioneers. Then, perhaps as now, there were people who wanted or, in some cases, needed to get away from the busier, more frantic parts of the world.
In the early 20th century it could not have been an easy place to live, although the beauty and bounty of the place likely made up for some of the difficulties. Then, like now, it would seem you couldn’t get farther from Miami or Tampa than Chokoloskee.
But especially then. The people living there were largely on their own, and in 1910, most famously, that meant the residents had to make their own laws, create their own court and devise their own punishment when a sugar farmer was accused by the townspeople of murdering his farmworkers rather than paying them.
A showdown took place, naturally at the Smallwood Store, and the farmer, Edgar Watson, the accused local murderer, found himself on the receiving end of a death sentence. Right then. Right there.
The Smallwood Store, on the National Register of Historic Places, stands much today as it stood when it closed in 1982. Almost 25 years ago, Ted’s granddaughter, Lynn Smallwood-McMillin, reopened it. In a state in which one of the few constants is the constant state of flux, the store offers an impactful, remarkably peaceful visit into a different time; it is a rare piece of Florida’s history that has stood both the test of time and development caused by a massive influx of people into the state.
But in 2011, it appeared as though development was going to reach into that remote corner of Florida when the land leading up to the Smallwood Store was purchased by Florida Georgia Grove, LLP, a developer who laid claim to the short road that led to the store. Eventually a fence was erected on the road, and once again, Ted Smallwood’s store was reachable only by boat, something that may have been okay in the early 20th century but didn’t work out so well for the small stream of tourists in the 21st century. The very existence of the store was threatened.
The standoff over the road lasted for four years. A Naples law firm provided legal assistance to Smallwood-McMillin. And Clyde Butcher, one of Florida’s most famous photographers, lent his voice in support of the store. In an earlier day, the conflict over the road and fence would have been settled in town by the town, and would likely have involved some gunplay. Supposedly, Butcher himself is quoted as saying as much. But instead it ended with Collier County agreeing to take ownership and responsibility for the road, and now, only since March, visitors can once again freely visit it by simply driving into another era down State Road 29 (keeping an eye out for panthers) and making a left turn on Mamie Street.
The nighttime humidity felt thick enough to swim in as the breeze died into a stillness that can only happen in or near such wild places as the Everglades, the very lungs of Florida. But the much-feared and oft-mentioned mosquitoes apparently had the night off. Walking through town, to the Smallwood Store, around the wonderfully eclectic Parkway Motel and Marina, I felt as though there was something magical about the place. A time warp kind of magical. In a place here and there, a bar or two may have briefly appeared on my cell-phone, but for the most part it simply reported “No Service.”
The Parkway Motel and Marina, too, feels like a different time. The four-unit motel appears as though it were built about the time the bridge opened to the island more than a half-century ago. It is clean and amazingly well kept, just like the adjoining marina that is as much an RV park as it is a marina, given the shallow waters of the Chokoloskee Bay.
“The snowbirds have left and the fishermen are now coming,” said Geri Shelburne, who owns the motel and marina along with her husband, Bill. It appears that many of the snowbirds left their RVs there, with plans to return.
But some apparently don’t. Throughout the town there are homes and trailers for sale. Perhaps it could be said that paradise comes with a price. Perhaps it is the isolation. Perhaps it is that the town’s restaurant, the Havana Cafe, closes in April and reopens in October.
But one thing is certain, the friendliness of the people drives no one away. Likely as when Ted was running his store, you can choose your form of paradise in Chokoloskee. If you want to run and hide from virtually everyone, people will likely respect that. If you want to walk down quiet streets and chat, chances are you’ll find someone before long. On my too-short visit, it kind of felt like Mayberry, except with alligators, snakes and dolphins. In other words, it’s a place I’ll happily return to someday when I find the need to calm my soul.
You don’t really check in at the Parkway Motel and Marina. On the office door are signs telling people who have reserved rooms which one is theirs. Inside, are the room keys. In all of my travels, I’ve only seen that one time before, in the tiny town of Ipswitch, South Dakota, also an isolated place. At the Ipswitch Motel, you could take any room that didn’t have lights on inside or a car parked in front, and you stopped by the town’s cafe the next morning to pay the $15 rate. Cash only.
But I was fortunate to meet Bill and Geri. The next morning Bill stopped by in a golf cart and pointed out that my car had a nearly flat tire. He told me not to worry, he’d get it worked out and then zoomed off in his golf cart, returning with an air compressor. Once refilled, he even offered to get me a can of “Fix-A-Flat,” as the nearest place to get a new tire was a nerve-wracking 30 miles away.
That kind of service doesn’t seem to exist anymore. Not unless you can go back in time, at least. Fortunately, that’s possible — just take a drive down State Road 29 where the Wednesday Ladies Coffee Group keeps the roadsides clean and panthers feel comfortable enough to cross the road. It’s Florida as it was, and in Chokoloskee, still is.