Port Charlotte

Large landholders sold property in this unknown paradise to working-class people, and since the 1950s, Port Charlotte has had a colorful history of progress.In the '50s, General Development Corporation created Port Charlotte by expanding the canals previously dug by John Murdock to drain the swampy land. The Mackle Company carved Arthur Frizzell's 80,000 acres into small, perfectly rectangular lots for resale to middle-class retirees--the targets of mass advertising and sales practices that included displaying models of Port Charlotte in department stores throughout Chicago and New York. Encouraging retirees to come to Port Charlotte resulted in the area having one of the highest concentrations of residents aged 65 and older in the nation. Port Charlotte's boom-and-bust history is a microcosm of the frenzied social and economic growth that transformed Florida in the second half of the 20th century.

Author Roxann Read frequently vacationed in the Port Charlotte area for 20 years and is currently a resident. She has held a lifelong interest in history and is also the author of Wood River: Along the River Bend, a history of her hometown. Many community members and organizations contributed time and photographs for Images of America: Port Charlotte.