Charlotte County, Florida: A History

At the end of the Civil War, the area around Charlotte County was the southernmost frontier in the United States. Americans rushed south for the promise of cheap land in paradise. Albert W. Gilchrist peddled that dream with great fanfare, but his outsized legacy as a driver of the area's growth comes with considerable baggage. As Charlotte County strives to reinvent itself once again, historian Ted Ehmann provides a historical lost-and-found where heroes fall from grace and new heroes are c...