Everglades City High School Celebrates 100 Years!

Congratulations to our Everglades City High School – this year celebrating its 100th anniversary! The first graduating class in 1926 consisted of just one student! Does anyone know who that student was?

The first formal lessons for students of this community were taught at the Storter family home (now the Rod and Gun Club) beginning in 1893. Two years later, the first dedicated schoolhouse was built at the mouth of the Barron River but was later destroyed by a tornado. In 1910, a second school building was constructed but was washed away by the notorious 1910 hurricane. In his book “Crackers in the Glade,” Rob Storter describes the scene: “The first hurricane I remember was in 1910. Sixteen years had passed and we had not had a hurricane in Everglade. The wind blew for several days from the northeast and we had lots of hard rains… Sometime after midnight the rains stopped, but the wind carried the scow across a barbed-wire fence and lodged it between the mangroves. We watched as our little schoolhouse floated by us like a box. It lodged in the mangroves and tore to pieces.”

In 1923, Barron Collier purchased the town of Everglade from the Storter family and created Everglades as the county seat. During the next several years, he built all the necessary facilities needed for a company town, including a new school. Marya Repko wrote in her book “A Brief History of the Everglades City Area” that “The school, which had been moved further up the river to its present site, was enlarged in 1923 to two rooms and had 45 pupils. It expanded further in 1926 and catered to students from grades one through 12.” Barron Collier built the high school wing, and the graduating class that first year consisted of just one student. Carolyn Thompson recalls graduating in 1951 and attending classes in the two-story main building. Prior to the Chokoloskee causeway completion in 1956, students would have to travel by boat to attend high school. It should be noted that the Collier County school district did not provide any high school education for Black students until the late 1960s (this will be discussed further in a future article).

At this time, the Everglades Society for Historic Preservation would like to extend our congratulations to the eleven high school seniors who graduate on May 15, 2026, the 100th anniversary of the first graduate!