Cabbage Key History | Reportedly Bought for $2,500 in 1936 | Boater & Visitor Guide #015

Cabbage Key began as a natural landform rather than a mound constructed entirely by people. Its foundation consists of ancient sandy elevations associated with the Ice Age landscape that existed before Pine Island Sound assumed its modern form. The official island history describes Cabbage Key as an Ice Age sand dune approximately 3,500 feet long and about 112 acres in area.

Cabbage Key is inside Pine Island Sound; it is not one of the outer barrier islands. Cayo Costa, Captiva and Sanibel form part of the barrier chain between the key and the open Gulf. Useppa Island lies immediately to the east. This protected position placed Cabbage Key beside productive estuarine waters rich in fish and shellfish.

The Florida Museum reports that shell middens blanket Cabbage Key’s sandy elevations, which reach approximately 38 feet at their highest point. This does not mean that Indigenous people built a single 38-foot mound from sea level. Natural sand created the island’s elevated core; generations of occupation then added archaeological deposits across portions of that terrain.

Historical charts have used several names for the island. Florida Museum research notes Guanal Key on an 1859 chart and Palmetto Island on an 1899 chart. “Pammelo” has not been confirmed in the authoritative sources reviewed for this guide and should not be presented as a documented Cabbage Key name.

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Cabbage Key’s public historic plaque identifies Calusa Indian occupation from approximately 100 B.C. to A.D. 1570. However, the Florida Museum notes that no formal archaeological excavation has established a complete occupation sequence for the island. Surface collections contain pottery representing the Caloosahatchee I period, approximately 500 B.C. to A.D. 500—a time when shell middens accumulated rapidly on several islands in Pine Island Sound.

The island’s extensive shell midden was formally recorded in 1951 by University of Florida archaeologist John Goggin. A midden is not simply a pile of discarded shells. It is an archaeological deposit created gradually where people lived, prepared food, made tools and repeatedly returned over many generations.

Shellfish remains accumulated with animal bones, pottery fragments, charcoal, soil and other traces of everyday life. Some shell middens formed gradually from repeated habitation and food preparation. Elsewhere in South Florida, Indigenous communities also deliberately shaped shell deposits into ridges, platforms, courtyards and places for houses or shared activity.

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Those regional examples demonstrate sophisticated landscape modification, but they do not prove that every Cabbage Key elevation was intentionally engineered for protection from storm surge, a chief’s residence, a temple, defense, breezes or mosquito relief. Without a formal excavation of this particular site, those specific purposes would be speculation.

The deposits nevertheless altered the island’s surface and provided elevated ground later selected for the Rinehart residence—today’s historic inn and restaurant. The visible landscape therefore combines natural geology with thousands of years of human activity.

The Taylor Stults Surface Collection

Because Cabbage Key has not received the intensive coring and excavation undertaken at major archaeological sites such as Pineland, Useppa Island and Mound Key, much of its archaeological interpretation comes from surface evidence. Taylor Stults, whose family owned Cabbage Key from 1944 to 1969, assembled a substantial collection of artifacts found on the island and submitted it for analysis in 1997.

The collection included prehistoric pottery fragments. Their forms indicate that the Caloosahatchee I period—approximately 500 B.C. to A.D. 500—is represented on Cabbage Key. This was also a period of rapid midden accumulation on Useppa, Burgess, Josslyn and other islands around Pine Island Sound.

Calusa communities throughout Southwest Florida fashioned shells into tools, utensils, ornaments and building material. Heavy shells could be modified for practical work, but the sources reviewed for this guide do not provide a complete catalog proving that particular axes, hammers or net sinkers formed part of the Stults collection. Those objects therefore describe the broader Calusa material tradition, not a confirmed inventory from Cabbage Key.

The surface collection also contained evidence associated with Spanish-Cuban fishermen from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. These later materials support the historical account that Cabbage Key became part of the regional fishing-rancho network long after its earlier Indigenous occupation.

What the Evidence Can—and Cannot—Establish

Together, the shell deposits, pottery and later historic artifacts confirm that people used Cabbage Key during widely separated periods. They do not yet provide a complete chronology, prove continuous residence for two thousand years or reveal exactly how every ridge and mound developed.

Excavations at Mound Key show that the Calusa could reorganize older midden deposits and construct monumental shell landscapes. That research is valuable comparative evidence for understanding the region, but Mound Key’s results should not be treated as direct excavation findings from Cabbage Key.

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The people associated with this archaeological tradition eventually became known historically as the Calusa. Their society was centered on the waterways of Southwest Florida. Unlike farming cultures that depended heavily on cultivated crops, the Calusa drew much of their food and power from fishing, shellfish gathering and the estuarine environment.

Canoes connected settlements and activity areas across Pine Island Sound. Fish, shellfish, birds, turtles and other coastal resources supported substantial communities. Shells also supplied raw material for tools and objects used in daily life.

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Cabbage Key should be understood as one place within this broader cultural landscape—not automatically as a major Calusa capital or a permanently occupied village. Nearby Pineland contains extensive evidence of large-scale Indigenous occupation, while Cabbage Key’s midden confirms repeated use and a meaningful Calusa-era presence.

The plaque on the island’s historic property identifies Calusa Indian occupation from approximately 100 B.C. to A.D. 1570. Archaeological evidence is more complex than a single beginning and ending date, so the plaque is best read as a concise public interpretation rather than an exact record of every occupation phase.

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Spanish expeditions reached the Southwest Florida coast during the sixteenth century. European contact brought conflict, political disruption and epidemic disease, yet the Calusa resisted Spanish control for roughly two centuries. Their population and political system ultimately declined during the colonial era, and surviving Indigenous people were displaced, absorbed into other communities or transported away from the region.

By the eighteenth century, Cuban fishermen were operating seasonal or semi-permanent camps called ranchos along Florida’s southwest coast. Crews caught fish, salted or dried the catch and shipped it to Havana. By about 1770, thirty or more Cuban vessels reportedly participated in this regional trade.

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The official Cabbage Key history identifies the island as the location of a Cuban fishing camp between approximately 1750 and 1832. Indigenous workers labored beside Cuban fishermen, illustrating that the rancho communities were culturally mixed. A major documented rancho also operated on neighboring Useppa Island.

These fishermen did not build the ancient shell mound; it existed long before the rancho period. They represent a later chapter in the island’s use, linking Pine Island Sound economically and culturally with Cuba.

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In 1875, Deputy Surveyor Horatio Jenkins Jr. completed a government survey of the area. The resulting township plat contained a consequential mistake: what was apparently the same physical island appeared in two locations and under two names—“Palmetto Key” and “Cabage Key,” with only one b.

Charles H. Gill of Punta Gorda took residence on “Cabage Key” in 1896 with the intention of obtaining it under the Homestead Act of 1862. The program required a claimant to reside on and improve eligible federal land for five years before receiving title. Cabbage Key’s official timeline refers to a nominal $10 filing fee; the National Park Service explains that standard combined homestead fees were commonly about $18.

After satisfying the homestead requirements, Gill received a federal land patent in 1901. This was not a normal commercial purchase, so the story should not be described as Gill buying the island for its market price.

Meanwhile, the federal government had certified the separately mapped “Palmetto Key” to the State of Florida as school indemnity land in 1899. On October 23, 1900, the state conveyed that supposed tract to business partners B.F. Hampton and James M. Graham. Their paper title led back to an island that did not exist where the inaccurate map placed it.

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The double mapping created two competing claims to one real island. Hampton and Graham challenged Gill’s ownership, beginning litigation that moved through Florida’s courts and ultimately reached the United States Supreme Court.

The investors prevailed at the first trial, but the Florida Supreme Court reversed that judgment. At a second trial, the verdict favored Gill, and the Florida Supreme Court affirmed it. Graham and the other plaintiffs—not Gill—then sought review by the United States Supreme Court.

On March 11, 1912, the Court affirmed the judgment in Gill’s favor in Graham v. Gill, 223 U.S. 643. The legal question concerned whether evidence beyond confusing survey field notes could be admitted to establish the actual location of the land described by Gill’s patent. The Court upheld the use of that evidence.

It is often summarized by saying that the Supreme Court “awarded” Gill the island. More precisely, the Court affirmed a judgment that protected the title created by his federal patent. The decision ended an extraordinary dispute caused by one island being recorded twice.

Gill planted fruit-bearing trees and tall coconut palms. Local recollections describe an orange grove on top of the shell midden, near the location later selected for the Rinehart residence. An approximately eighteen-foot-wide dock made from cabbage-palm logs provided access from Pine Island Sound.

The decades after the court decision remain only partly documented. Local stories mention coconuts and guavas behind the orange grove, an Italian moonshiner who used dynamite and cleared groves in the woods, and another resident who raised hogs and reportedly also made moonshine. These colorful recollections help describe island life, but they should be treated as oral history rather than complete official records.

The 1935 Florida State Census provides firmer evidence. It listed fisherman Elbert Thigpen, his wife Lena and their three children as renters on Palmetto Key. They presumably occupied a house, although the location and character of that building are not documented. Any earlier structures may have been removed when the Rineharts began construction.

By 1936, the island was still largely wild and undeveloped compared with the estate that would soon occupy its highest ground. An older occupant, wild pigs and native wildlife remained part of the landscape.

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Alan G. Rinehart was the son of bestselling mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart. Mary had become familiar with Southwest Florida through visits to neighboring Useppa Island, where she enjoyed tarpon fishing. Those family connections introduced Alan and Gratia to the protected islands of Pine Island Sound.

Alan reportedly fell in love with wild Palmetto Key. He and Gratia Houghton Rinehart purchased the island in June 1936 and began transforming it into a private winter retreat. Gratia came from the Houghton family associated with Corning Glass Works, giving the couple the resources to commission an ambitious island estate.

Was the 1936 Price $2,500 or $20,000?

I consider the reported $2,500 figure more plausible. The pre-Rinehart property had a complicated title history, Gill had died before the transaction, and the island lacked the substantial estate buildings seen today. The Rineharts then funded the main house, cottages, boathouse, docks, powerhouse and water tower. Eight years later, the much-improved property sold for $25,000.

The Rineharts hired prominent Fort Myers architect Nat Walker to design their estate. Construction began in June 1936 under contractor M.M. “Pint” Cornwell and was substantially completed by spring 1937.

The main residence occupied the island’s elevated shell midden, approximately 130 feet from Pine Island Sound. Its irregular plan, multiple screened porches and openings were designed to capture prevailing breezes—an essential form of natural ventilation before air conditioning.

The approximately 4,500-square-foot house included six bedrooms, staff rooms, a large living room, dining room, kitchen, six fireplaces and several porches. The estate also included docks, a boathouse, powerhouse, caretaker’s cottage and a playhouse for daughters Topsy and Patsy. The playhouse later became the waterfront Dollhouse Cottage, sometimes called the “honeymoon suite.”

The Water Tower

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The sixty-foot wooden water tower supported a cylindrical tank with a capacity of approximately 6,000 gallons. Its dogleg staircase has 41 steps leading to the observation platform beneath the tank. Because the tower stands on elevated midden ground, visitors gain an exceptional view across Pine Island Sound. It remains one of the estate’s most recognizable historic structures.

Alan and Gratia divorced in 1938. Under their property settlement, Alan conveyed his interest in Palmetto Key to Gratia for $18,000. She then became the first—and according to the official island history, the only—person to hold sole individual ownership of Cabbage Key.

During the same period, Gratia supported a U.S. Department of Fisheries expedition led by ichthyologist Dr. Charles M. Breder. She provided land for a one-story laboratory with sleeping quarters and allowed a containment pool to be created for experiments. Breder reported that construction of the station cost approximately $2,500.

The facility was variously called the Palmetto Key Field Station, Florida Tarpon Laboratory and New York Aquarium Research Station. Breder studied tarpon life history and collected information about many other fishes of the region. The laboratory building is now known as Tarpon Cottage.

Gratia died from breast cancer on May 24, 1939, at only 34 years of age. Her daughters, Topsy and Patsy, were eleven and eight. Her brother Arthur Houghton Jr. then administered Palmetto Key as trustee and executor of her estate. He did not personally purchase the island from the Rineharts.

Arthur honored Gratia’s wish that Breder be permitted to continue his work. The field station remained active until June 1942, when wartime circumstances brought the program to an end.

After Gratia’s death, the Jeffcott Realty Company of Fort Myers was given the task of selling Palmetto Key. Published history reports an asking price of $45,000, but interest was limited. World War II may have discouraged buyers from taking on a remote island estate.

The property was not completely abandoned for the entire period from 1939 to 1944. Breder’s research continued through June 1942. After his departure, however, the island was essentially unoccupied for approximately two years while Arthur Houghton Jr. served overseas.

Larry and Jan Stults learned that Palmetto Key was for sale while boating near Boca Grande in 1944. They offered $25,000 against the reported $45,000 asking price, and the estate accepted. The couple signed a contract in June 1944 for the approximately 111-acre property.

The real-estate brochure used attractive photographs apparently taken when the estate was much newer. An inspection revealed heavy brush, damaged landscaping and mechanical systems requiring attention, including the electrical generator. These conditions help explain the lower offer, although surviving accounts do not prove that repairs were the sole reason the estate accepted it.

Gratia Houghton Rinehart → Gratia’s estate, administered by Arthur Houghton Jr. → Larry and Jan Stults

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Larry and Jan Stults did not purchase Palmetto Key with a detailed resort-development plan. They recognized that the well-built estate could be adapted for paying guests and began converting its buildings soon after the purchase.

The caretaker’s residence could be used almost immediately. The children’s playhouse needed water, a bathroom and a septic system before becoming a guest cottage. Breder’s former laboratory also required conversion. Together, the main house and cottages eventually accommodated approximately 25 guests.

Most of the main buildings came furnished, including a comfortable living room and an extensive library. The Stultses contacted northern friends and business associates, relying largely on personal recommendations rather than tourist agencies. Their relaxed approach became part of the island’s identity: visitors came to fish, read, paint, explore or simply do nothing on a schedule.

The inn faced an immediate test when the Cuba–Florida hurricane crossed the area on October 19, 1944. The estate’s strong construction prevented serious structural damage, although the water system was affected. The survival of the buildings demonstrated the quality of the Rinehart investment.

1969: The Stults Era Ends

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After nearly twenty-five years of operating the island inn, Larry and Jan Stults decided to retire. Health, age and the demands of managing a remote property influenced their decision. They sold Cabbage Key in 1969 and moved to Sarasota, where they spent their retirement on Siesta Key. Larry continued his work as an artist, while later generations of the Stults family continued returning to the island they had helped shape.

1969–1971: Jimmy Turner

On July 9, 1969, James “Jimmy” Turner purchased Cabbage Key from the Stultses for $160,000. Turner already owned neighboring Useppa Island, where he operated an adults-only resort that did not admit children under fourteen. The official history does not clearly establish that he imposed the same adults-only rule on Cabbage Key.

Turner transferred management of Useppa to Bob and Jo Ann Beck and moved to Cabbage Key. His ownership was brief, but it connected the histories of the two neighboring islands and prepared the way for another important change.

1971–1976: The Beck Era

In 1971, Bob and Jo Ann Beck purchased Cabbage Key from Turner for $225,000. They sold their Clearwater home to raise a $10,000 down payment and planned to operate the island with limited assistance. To help finance the purchase, they subdivided part of the property and offered half-acre interests for $10,000 each.

One unusually valuable part of the agreement was a liquor license transferred from Useppa Island. Such licenses were reportedly approaching $200,000 in value when one could be obtained, yet Turner transferred the Useppa license to the Becks for a recorded consideration of only $10. That transfer allowed the former library in the Rinehart house to become Cabbage Key’s bar—and set the stage for its most famous tradition.

1976: The Wells Era Begins

After the Beck period and an unsuccessful installment-sale arrangement involving another group of buyers, Rob and Phyllis Wells acquired Cabbage Key in 1976. The Wells family became long-term stewards of the island and its Old Florida character.

Before Mainland Electricity: The Generator Era

For decades, operating an island inn required producing electricity on-site. During the Stults era, Cabbage Key used two gasoline-powered Kohler systems: a smaller 2-kilowatt generator and a larger 5-kilowatt unit. To conserve fuel, the usual routine was to start a generator at approximately 5:00 p.m., generally choosing the more economical 2-kilowatt system.

That limited supply carried the inn through preparations for dinner, the meal itself and the evening’s conversation, reading and drinks. At 11:00 p.m., the generator was shut down and the island became dark and quiet. Each guest room in the main house had a kerosene storm lamp for anyone who wished to remain awake and read or talk.

Technology changed over time. Rob Wells remembers the island of his childhood relying on a diesel generator and a ship-to-shore radio, with no regular electric service or telephone connection. The steady sound of the generator was reassuring: as long as the engine could be heard, the island’s essential systems were operating. Unexpected silence signaled that someone needed to investigate.

1981: Electricity Crosses Pine Island Sound

Cabbage Key finally received utility electricity in 1981. The official island timeline records that year, while a Gulfshore Life account describes the Lee County Electric Cooperative running cables to both Cabbage Key and neighboring Useppa Island during Useppa’s early-1980s development.

The new connection transformed the infrastructure behind the inn. It provided a steadier power supply and reduced dependence on generators, yet it did not remove the qualities that defined the island. Cabbage Key remained accessible only by water, and its historic buildings and landscape retained their Old Florida appearance.

Today, the main Rinehart residence serves as the inn and restaurant. Historic auxiliary buildings continue as guest cottages, including the former caretaker’s residence, the Dollhouse and the former tarpon laboratory. The water tower remains a landmark and observation point.

Cabbage Key has no bridge and no public road connection. Guests arrive by private boat, water taxi or tour vessel. That limitation helped preserve the feeling that makes the island special: docking is part of the experience, and the transition from boat to shaded footpath immediately slows the pace.

For me as a captain, Cabbage Key is more than a lunch destination. The approach across Pine Island Sound, the historic dock, the walk beneath tropical vegetation and the view from the shell-mound elevation connect today’s boat trip with every earlier chapter of the island.

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Cabbage Key’s popularity grew from several elements working together: boat-only access, the preserved Rinehart estate, waterfront dining, fishing culture, tropical vegetation and stories passed from one visitor to another.

The dollar-bill tradition began during the Beck era, almost as soon as the new bar opened in 1971. Gil Hampton, Jo Ann Beck’s son and one of the bar’s first bartenders, remembered the first bill being attached to the wall—but not exactly who placed it there or why.

Several explanations followed. Some visitors left a bill for luck or as a reminder of their visit. Another story says commercial fishermen posted emergency drink money that could be reclaimed after an unsuccessful day. Rather than selecting one explanation as proven history, it is more accurate to recognize that several traditions grew around an uncertain beginning.

Today, visitors continue adding signed bills to the walls and ceilings. As older notes loosen and fall, the collected money is donated to charity.

The island is also frequently connected with Jimmy Buffett and “Cheeseburger in Paradise.” Buffett visited Cabbage Key, and the restaurant’s cheeseburger naturally strengthened the association. However, no conclusive evidence establishes that the song was written about Cabbage Key. The claim should therefore remain what it is: enjoyable local folklore, not verified history.

The legend still tells us something important. Cabbage Key became famous because visitors experienced it as an escape—a place reached by boat where lunch, stories and the surrounding water mattered more than schedules. That atmosphere, rather than any single celebrity story, is the strongest reason for its lasting appeal.

This article distinguishes documented facts from oral history, published recollections and folklore. The principal sources are:

1. Cabbage Key Inn & Restaurant — The History of Cabbage Key. A detailed timeline compiled from government documents, newspapers, photographs and family materials.
2. Florida Museum of Natural History — Tour Cabbage Key. Archaeological context for the shell midden and regional history.
3. Florida Museum of Natural History — Building on Shells. Comparative archaeological research showing deliberate reshaping of midden deposits at Mound Key; it is not a report of excavation on Cabbage Key.
4. Florida Museum of Natural History — The Calusa People. Background on Calusa society and the Southwest Florida environment.
5. Graham v. Gill, 223 U.S. 643 (1912). Text and summary of the United States Supreme Court decision.
6. U.S. National Archives — Homestead Act of 1862.
7. National Park Service — The Homestead Act. General requirements and federal fees.
8. Cabbage Key: Worlds Away. Published account reporting the $2,500 purchase figure, $45,000 listing and $25,000 Stults purchase.
9. Gulfshore Life — Living the Good Life on Cabbage Key. Wells-family recollections of generator-powered island life, ship-to-shore radio communication and the arrival of utility cables in the early 1980s.