Cape Coral is a city where a vision became reality. It was in 1957 when Jack and Leonard Rosen, two entrepreneurial brothers from Baltimore, purchased the peninsula on the Caloosahatchee River across from Fort Myers and shortly thereafter turned the approximately 100 square miles of swamp land into a fast growing city.

The property was divided by the newly formed Gulf American Land Corporation into thousands of buildable lots, many of them located on newly dug canals. Aggressive marketing in the entire U.S. followed. Potential buyers were brought into town by plane, with today’s Del Prado Blvd. serving as a landing strip. The first single family homes were already completed in May 1958, with a prime location right on the river.