Everglades Club

Welcome to Paradise!

The city of Naples was founded in 1886 by former Confederate general and Kentucky U.S. Senator John Stuart Williams and his partner, Louisville businessman Walter N. Haldeman, the publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Throughout the 1870s and 1880s, magazine and newspaper stories ran stories about the area's mild climate and abundant fish and likened it to the sunny Italian peninsula. The name Naples caught on when promoters described the bay as "surpassing the bay in Naples, Italy". By the summer of 1888, Naples had a population of about 80 people, and the first hotel opened in 1889. Major development was anticipated after Collier County was established in 1923, the completion of the Seaboard Air Line Railroad extension in 1927, and the completion of the Tamiami Trail linking Naples to Miami in 1928, but did not begin until after the 1929 Stock market crash, the Great Depression, and World War II. During the war the U.S. Army Air Forces built a small airfield and used it for training purposes; it is now the Naples Municipal Airport.