Written by Stephen Brittain
Good afternoon, I’m Stephen Brittain. I moved to Lehigh Acres with my family in January of 1962 as a 4 ½ year old and spent my first summer here having my tonsils removed at Lee Memorial Hospital in Fort Myers. My first organized schooling experience was at Frances Barbour’s kindergarten on Lee Boulevard. There I would meet friends, some of which, I would spend the next 13 years with. Steve Ranke, Gary Dahlke, Charles Kessler, Jeff Boswell, Dalton Drake, Susan Hart, Mark Bateman, Jimmy Friedlander, Donna Marie Williams – this little group started and finished school together here in Lee County.
Lehigh Acres was a company town. Land owner turned real estate developer Lee Ranter knew that the 12 square miles of the Lucky Lee Ranch would best yield a profit if turned into quarter acre home sites. So this working ranch was divided into some 144,000 ¼ and ½ acre lots and sold starting around 1955. The ads ran during the evening news in New York City telling prospective buyers that for 10 dollars down and 10 dollars a month, you could own a home site in Lehigh Acres, Florida. I am told that bags of mail were delivered to the Miami offices of Lehigh Acres Land and Title Company, daily, as people mailed in their checks.
Soon a small motel complete with a pool, restaurant and a bar opened, followed by an auditorium, golf course, water and sewer treatment plant and a youth center. A shopping center was built and a local businessman, Al Hitzing, was lured to Lehigh to open Al’s grocery store. Which had a luncheon counter and housed the post office!
Lehigh had a small gas station at the corner of Alabama Road and Homestead Road in what is now the Suncoast Schools Federal Credit Union building.
Homes were being constructed at an alarming rate. A 924 square foot home with 1 bathroom and 2 or 3 bedrooms complete with a lot – was around 6100.00 dollars in 1960.
What is most amazing about this is that all these things that we needed in order to live here were supplied by “The Company” as we called it. Lehigh Acres Development Incorporated knew that in order to sell lots and houses residents needed a place to shop, buy food, they needed water to drink and sewer systems to get rid of the water. The new Lehigh Acres resident would want a country club and a pool and golf course – so very wisely the powers that be engaged several amazing men to do this job.
Mr. James Friedlander was brought on board to head the water and sewer plant and oversee its new facility off Coolidge Avenue.
Mr. Dave Langford was instructed to start building roads and bridges that would amount to about 1200 miles before he was finished.
Mr. Jim Richmond, who actually worked at the original ranch, was retained to fill a variety of roles in the sale force.
Mr. Arthur Kessler had a primary role in promoting new business and to bring businessmen to the table to see what they might offer the citizens of Lehigh Acres. Shopping centers, banks and other services can be directly traced back to his efforts. Additionally, he was a wonderful supporter of things like Little League and other youth activities.
Mr. Gerald Gould who came as the first president of “The Company” would oversee the plan as a ranch would become a town.
I knew all of these men personally as a youngster and later worked with some of them as an adult.
This team of men, along with their wives and children, poured their life’s blood into this community. When Hurricane Donna hit Lee County in September of 1960 many roofs were torn off homes and 100’s of trees were downed – once the storm passed Jerry Gould instructed company trucks be dispatched to Fort Myers to hire laborers to help clean up the town. The cleanup was done in a matter of days. It was a real “Get er done” approach.
The “Company” also had a policy of offering an acre of land to any church that wanted to form. In the early 1970’s I recall a billboard that boasted 17 churches – in a town of less than 10,000 people.
The company wasn’t just building homes it was building a community.
Early in the life of this new community about 15 miles from Fort Myers, it was obvious that a school in our own town was going to be a necessity. The local school board was approached and asked to please build a school here in Lehigh Acres. The school board listened and agreed that getting children to Fort Myers or Alva Elementary School (which was 10 miles away) was a bit of a problem – but there was no money in the budget for buildings, buses and teachers. Their answer was, “NO”
The company people weren’t taking, “No” for an answer and returned to the school board with an offer. They agreed to build 3 houses and not finish the interiors so that these could be used for school rooms. There would be no bedrooms, no kitchen, just one big room with a smooth cement floor and a bathroom and big crash bar doors out to a black topped back yard. The school board did send 3 teachers and later a 4th teacher and a portable building that was erected between the 1st and 2nd building.
So now we had a school and teachers but no way to get to school. There was no money in the school board’s budget for a bus and bus driver. Not to worry – the company had a bus and once in the morning and once in the afternoon they operated the bus and shuttled the children to or from school.
Each morning beloved Principal Betty Ratliff would pick two kids and have them walk the black top swinging a copper cow bell on a rope. This is how we started classes. Sometime during the morning two kids would be asked to take the metal milk crate to the 3rd house where Mrs. Ratliff was teaching 6th grade – she’d stop what she was doing and count out enough cartons of milk, one for each child, to go in the box and then you’d walk back to your class room. We had No lunch room or kitchen – so everyone packed a lunch every single day.
When I was asked to tell this story to you today – I kept trying to figure out what made this experience so special. What was different about this school? I think that the answer is that this school was one of the major things that made Lehigh Acres a real legitimate town. It gave the community purpose and gave us our own identity. The people who lived in Lehigh Acres when to a school IN Lehigh Acres.
The school board saw that the area was growing and growing fast. In 1962 they bought this property right here and built a bridge over the Able Canal (did you know it was called the Able Canal?) In the summer of 1964 my father brought me and my siblings here to see the building still under construction. It was huge! It had yellow doors with grey trim. It had a bus ramp where 3 buses could pull up at the same time. WOW, 3 buses we would never have 3 buses in use at the same time. It had 8 class rooms, teacher’s lounge, a clinic and administrative offices! We would never use 8 class rooms at one time! It had 3 water fountains in the main hall way. It is interesting to note that none of the school had air conditioning. The classrooms each had a big closet in the back of the room and on top of the closet was a big belt driven fan. When the teacher turned on the fan, the air bounced off the walls and blew ALL the paper off your desks every single time.
First day of school in 1964 the entire school lined up at the bus ramps and in class room order we were led to our new rooms. There were 31 of us 2nd graders lead by Mrs. Persons.
The combination cafeteria and auditorium called “the Cafeatorium” was not finished on the first day of school so everyone had to bring their lunch for several months. The library was not finished yet either but soon it was ready.
So that’s the story of how this place came to be. I doubt that I will be able to be here for the next 50th year celebration because I’d be 107 years old. The school doesn’t really look much like it did back then because things change and more class rooms were needed but it’s still Lehigh Acres Elementary School and the good memories never change!
Congratulations on 50 years serving the community and its students.