Historic Faces

It was in 1970 he moved from New York City to Captiva permanently, citing here he “felt a magic that was unexplainable in it’s power.” It was on Captiva the artist thrived -- and remained until his death in 2008.

In 1903 she crossed Roosevelt Channel to Captiva and purchased 23 acres from the island’s first homesteader William Binder.  The home she built and expanded over the years eventually became a hotel, with Hattie its manager.  Additionally, she became the second postmistress on Captiva, the post office being located at the front of the hotel.

It was in January 1950; Anne chose Captiva to find respite from her very public life and obligations of family and career and returned to the island on her own. Her time on Captiva is said to inspire Gift from the Sea; the most celebrated of her more than two dozen literary works.

Thereafter the Darlings, often with their children John and Mary, would trek each winter from their home in Iowa to stay at Captiva’s Price’s Cottages. It was “Ding” who encouraged Bowman and Grace Price to change the name of their little resort to ‘Tween Waters Inn.

Back on Captiva in the winter months Johnson would often serve as guide for winter residents, including J.N. “Ding” Darling and the Bixby brothers, Harold and Ralph.

In 1985, neighbor and friend Robert Rauschenberg arranged a trust agreement where ownership of Stamper’s property was transferred to him in exchange for payment of Maybelle’s bills and medical expenses through the time of her death in 1995.

When Andy left home at age 15, he worked the commercial fishing circuit of South West Florida, eventually arriving in Punta Gorda. It was there he met and soon married 14-year old Dessa. While working a fish camp on Buck Key in 1926, the couple discovered Captiva and then moved here permanently in 1935.

Harold Bixby was one of three Captiva Island residents appointed by Governor Collins in 1958 to serve as commissioner to the newly formed Captiva Erosion Prevention District.

She assumed responsibility for the family business (Putnam Lumber Company) upon her father’s death in 1925, and built her winter home on Captiva.

To this day it is remembered as the place where locals and tourists alike could count on the Wiles girls to serve up good times, affordable hamburgers, and icy cold slices of blueberry sour cream pie.

After their marriage, James and Signe purchased the 2-room dressing room for Captiva’s Fisherman’s Lodge in 1927. They later would turn their modest home into the dining room of what they would eventually launch as the “Gulf View Inn".