Motivated in part by the resumption of Brightline service, I decided to visit the Naples Depot Museum, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.
The museum occupies the 1927 depot in downtown Naples created for the Seaboard Air Line Railroad when it arrived in town and transformed access to Naples. The inaugural train was the celebrated Orange Blossom Special, which Seaboard ran between the Northeast and Florida until 1953, introducing millions of tourists to the Sunshine State.
Grand Central Terminal this isn't. Like most of the stations built in 1920s Florida, Naples Depot is attractive and tropical but fairly modest by the standards of the day.
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Inside is a collection of artifacts and installations that tell the Naples story, with particular emphasis on transportation. For anyone who knows the posh 21st-century version of this city, the quaint and tiny town of yesteryear (pop. 4,600 in 1960) is worth discovering.
The Naples Depot Museum is housed in a rail terminal opened in 1927. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
The first stop in the station, the old waiting rooms (one white, one Black) are devoted to rail history, in particular the Seaboard and the Atlantic Coast Line, rivals on the west coast of Florida until they merged in 1967.
After that come exhibits devoted to Native Americans and the region's pioneers. There are displays of key figures whose names are honored in Naples geography (Crayton Cove) and thoroughfares (Airport Pulling Road). There's a check-in desk and guest register from the original Naples Beach Hotel and displays on early industries, such as fishing, tobacco farming, tourism and boat building.
For me, a favorite relic is the neon-illuminated sign from the Trail's End Motel, which used to mark Tamiami Trail's entrance into downtown Naples. There's also a tribute to the Naples Beach Hotel and Golf Club, recently announced as the site of a Four Seasons. An aerial photo that appears to be from the early 1950s shows the resort surrounded by almost nothing, whereas today it is crowded by homes and apartments.
The transport exhibits are really entertaining, from the vintage 1922 Ford Model T depot taxi to the photo-montage of the iconic Naples Pier, including a timeline of all the hurricanes that destroyed the structure over the years.
I enjoyed the aviation corner that told the story of the Army Air Force training field that became Naples International Airport and of Naples Airlines & Provincetown Boston Airline, whose seasonal service dominated Naples in the 1970s and '80s.
Observation Car is the star
Parked adjacent to the Depot Museum is a restored 1947 Observation Car operated by the Seaboard to Naples train. Photo Credit: Tom Stieghorst
But the star exhibit at the Depot Museum is actually parked outside: Seaboard's Observation Car 6601, one of six built by the Budd Co. of Philadelphia in 1947. Capable of carrying 58 people, the streamlined aluminum Observation Car was divided between a bar and the observation lounge and has been fully restored to 1947 splendor. Had Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall ever visited Naples, they surely would have arrived in this car.
There is a temporary exhibit at the museum until Dec. 31 titled "Fabulous Fins and Fenders" that offers auto-related photos of Naples, many from the post-war 1940s and 50s: cars on the streets, post-war service stations, car interiors, police patrol cars and more.
The Depot Museum is one of five sites run by Collier County Museums. On my return trip to Miami, I decided to stop off to see a another one, the Museum of the Everglades in nearby Everglades City.
Housed in the old steam laundry building that Barron Collier added in
his expansion of the town in the 1920s, the museum is devoted in good
part to the building of Tamiami Trail, which Collier coordinated from
Everglades City.
There's a fascinating scale model of the Bay City, an enormous
steam-powered walking dredge that dug the canal next to Tamiami Trail,
providing limestone for the highway's roadbed.
Until Hurricane Donna swamped it in 1960, Everglades City was the
official seat of Collier County. But while Everglades City languished
after the storm, insurance money poured into Naples, and in 1962 the
county seat was shifted there. Naples never looked back.