were virgin pine forests, the trees had not
even been turpentined.
As for
businesses, he remembers one in particular.
“H.W. Smith had a bakery, no bigger than a
two-car garage; he used to bake the bread,
put it on a little wagon and peddle it up
and down the street. Other merchants would
buy his bakery goods, put them in a glass
case, unwrapped and unsliced. That little
bakery grew into a business that covered the
whole street. He eventually owned a whole
block on Marion with a bakery, market,
restaurant and the Bay View Hotel. He also
remembers a livery stable on Herald Court
next to the first jail; Jim Goff ran it and
there was another one near the courthouse.
Byron Rhode had been born in Williston,
Florida in 1904 and moved to Punta Gorda
when he was “a little tot”. His family home
is still standing on Sullivan Street and he
remembers when “the town was just a little
village. At the intersection of Cross and
Marion there was an artesian well with a
pipe fountain and a tin cup attached for the
thirsty passerby, and a trough for horses
and oxen. The City Hall was a small
one-story block building with a shed on the
side. In this shed was stored a two-wheeled
fire cart with a long tongue. When there
was a fire, the icehouse would blow its
whistle and the townspeople would race to
the shed, grab the tongue of the cart and
pull it to the blaze.”
There was no sewage system and there were
outhouses in the alleys back of the homes.
An old black man, Alex Stephens, drove a
white mule hitched to a two-wheel cart up
and down these alleys and cleaned out the
privies for 50 cents a month. There were no
bridges across the river, only two or three
autos in town and no paved roads to run them
on. When night descended on the town, a few
kerosene street lamps mounted on poles were
lit by hand and at dawn they were
extinguished. The streets were unpaved and
the sidewalks were wooden boards.
Byron Rhode remembers the funeral pyre of
eccentric and wealthy Perry McAdow. He
recalls Miss Norma Pepper’s private school
on Olympia Avenue and King Street (Route
41N) when it was a dusty railroad siding and
the station was located across Highway 41
approximately a block south of the Barron
Collier bridge.
I first met Byron Rhode a few years back.
He had journeyed down from his home in
Jacksonville to attend a family reunion.
His visit to his hometown had evoked
memories and a sadness in the man. He said,
“Walking through the streets, I didn’t see a
soul I knew. But when I visited Indian
Springs cemetery there were all my friends.
I recognized name after name, family after
family. I stood and looked out over
gravestones of families side by side.
Finally I sat down under a tree by the creek
and thought--here are my friends, here is
the Punta Gorda I used to know”.
This past spring, on Old Timers’ Day, I ran
into Byron Rhode again, this time surrounded
by old neighbors and friends on the steps of
City Hall, watching the parade go by. He
seemed a happy man, contentedly enjoying the
town today but he must have been remembering
when the latchstring was always out in homes
the homes of Punta Gorda, when everybody
knew everybody and when Belle Quednau was
“the prettiest girl in town”.
Chapter Seven
Belle Quednau was born in 1891 in Sumter,
South Carolina, the daughter of Ludovic
McBean, an energetic Scotsman who came to
this country from Glasgow in the mid-80s.
He became an officer in the Salvation Army,
courted and married a lovely young lady who
was to become Belle’s mother.
The family remained in Sumter until a
frightening malaria epidemic swept the
town. Two of Belle’s brothers died of the
disease and Ludovic decided to move his
little family further south to Florida.
Boarding the train and saying farewell to
Sumter, the McBeans set out for Fort Myers
where Ludovic had been promised a job with
H.E. Heitman, owner of vast orange groves.
He became engineer on a boat bringing the
fruit from Estero to Fort Myers where it was
loaded on a train. The family lived on
Estero for two years while the head of the
house plied the waters back and forth with
the valuable cargo. They were happy in
their new surroundings until Ludovic was
seriously injured when a heavy crate of
oranges fell on him and he was no longer
able to do any type of hard labor.
Ludovic went to work for the Punta Gorda
Fish Company, managing one of its ice houses
in Carlos. After a short time he was
promoted to another position for the same
company in Punta Gorda and moved his family
here. They lived on Goldstein Street right
across the street from where Belle lives
today. The first school in Punta Gorda was
next door, so Belle never had an excuse to
be tardy!
Belle remembers her first Christmas in Punta
Gorda. She and her five siblings hopped out
of bed at sun-up to see what Santa had
brought. Their Christmas stockings were
filled with homemade candy, apples and
nuts. “I’ll never forget my favorite
toy--probably still somewhere in the attic.
It was a Chinese doll in a lovely kimono.
Mama had started cooking weeks before
Christmas, fruitcake, barbecued pork, ham.
She put everything in a big lard can, sealed
it tight and set it down our well. The pies
and cakes she would bake later as they
wouldn’t keep. Dinner was in the middle of
the day because we had only kerosene lamps,
not fit for a holiday dinner. Chicken and
dumplings, ham and barbecued pork, sweet
potato pie and for desert, mincemeat pie,
lemon pie and fruitcake!” A tired but happy
little girl tumbled into bed that night.
Belle went to school right next door and
remembers that the roads in town were mainly
dirt with the exception of a few that were
paved with oyster shells. She and her
friends used to swim down at the bay; “Mrs.
McAdow let us swim in front of her house
where there were steps going down into the
water. About half of us didn’t have bathing
suits; we’d swim in our old clothes. We
used to go crabbing a lot, take a big tub
and a crab net out to where the Isles is
now.
“There was one picture show, no talking or
anything like that, and it cost a dime”.
Harry Goldstein, who owned the picture
house, provided musical background for the
silent movies; he played the violin. A
friend of Belle’s played the cornet and
someone else, the piano. Quite a lot of
entertainment for a dime! After the show,
there was Mobley’s Seminole Pharmacy for a
great big soda (a dime) or a nickel
ice-cream cone.
When Belle was a very young girl living on
Estero, she had met a handsome young boy who
was the youngest captain (17) to sail this
coast. It was truly love at first sight but
Fred Quednau had to wait for Belle to grow
up. In the meantime she moved to Punta
Gorda, attended school and enjoyed her young
girlhood.
She left school in the eighth grade to work
in the local packing house, crating oranges,
grapefruit and tangerines for the grove
owners. Ludovic’s health was failing and
Belle was fast becoming an important
breadwinner in the family. The fruit
shipping business was a lucrative one,
especially during the height of the season.
Six girls worked in the packing house and,
according to Belle, they made more money
than the teachers.
There was a talented seamstress in town,
Miss Rhoda Adams, who did all the sewing for
the rich guests at the hotel. She taught
young Belle all the intricacies of her
handicraft and soon Belle was packing fruit
in the winter and sewing in the summertime
for a much needed income.
Belle was working in the packing house when
the 1918 Armistice was signed and she’ll
never forget that day. “We were all working
away when the train came down King Street,
its whistle blowing to beat the band, flags
were waving, horns tooting and people were
dancing in the street. That was a day!”
The courtship of Belle McBean and youthful
Cap’n Fred Quednau was a prolonged one.
Both young people, though much in love, had
strong family obligations. Belle’s father
had never really recovered from his injury
on Estero and there were six children in the
family; Belle was an important contributor
to the family income. “Fred’s daddy had
died when he was four years old and he and
his brothers had to go to work early in life
to help their mother support the family.”
Fritz Quednau arrived in Punta Gorda from
Germany in the late 1800s and opened the
first cigar factory on Marion Avenue. He
and his wife had three sons, one of whom was
Fred, born in 1892. When Fred was only four
years old, his father died and life became a
struggle for the youngster and his
brothers. Mrs. Quednau had to go out and
work to feed her children; among the people
she worked for were Mrs. Trabue and Mrs.
McAdow. Fred and his brothers left school
at and early age and went to work on the run
boats. After a long day’s work, the boys
were taught at night by the legendary Norma
Pepper. Fred, at 17 became the youngest
captain to sail these waters and finally
found himself in a position to ask for his
true love’s hand.
Belle and Fred Quednau were the second
couple to be married in Charlotte County
after its break from DeSoto; the first being
Austin and Bertha Powell.
Chapter Eight
Cap’n Fred loaded cargo in Punta Gorda,
essential items for the people living
further south: flour, sugar, yardgoods,
lumber, tools, dynamite and even “white
lightning”. Belle traveled on the boat with
him; there was a stateroom for the Captain,
a cook on board and a crew of eight, so
Belle traveled in comfort. She enjoyed
these trips, doing her sewing and crocheting
while drinking in the beautiful scenery.
Even when their daughter, Tosie (Hindman),
was born, Belle still sailed with Cap’n Fred
and the little girl became a natural sailor.
As Tosie approached school age, there had to
be a drastic change in the Quednau
lifestyle. Belle became a landlubber again
while Tosie started her education. Cap’n
Fred endured this separation from his little
family for a while and then gave up his
sailing days for good. He had always
enjoyed cooking and decided to try to make a
living at it. In 1929 he opened Fred’s
Quick Lunch on Marion Avenue (Where Waldo’s
Bistro is now) and ran it successfully for
17 years. Always a gregarious and friendly
man, he entered city politics, first as a
councilman, then becoming Mayor in the ‘30s
and going on to be Sheriff of Charlotte
County. The marriage of the little girl
from Estero and Punta Gorda and the young
lad working the boats was a long and happy
one. Belle is now a widow lady still living
on Goldstein Street across from her old
schoolhouse (now an apartment building) and
content with her memories of Cap’n Fred and
their life together. Her daughter, Tosie
Hindman, lives not far away and tries to
keep an eye on her over-active mother.
Chapter Nine
The cattle industry was an integral part of
Florida’s early growth. Gladys Wilt’s great
grandfather was Jesse Knight who, in the
1820s was one of the pioneer cattlemen in
the state. His place, Knight’s Station, is
still on the map east of Tampa. At the
height of Knight’s cattle “empire”, his
holdings stretched east to the Myakka River
and south almost to Charlotte Harbor where
20,000 head of cattle grazed.
A generation later, sometime before the
Civil War, Gladys’ grandfather, Shadrick
(“Shade”) Hancock, also headed south with
his cattle from Georgia to a new life in
Florida. On the long journey from Georgia
Shade stopped off at Knight’s Station,
worked for a while for Jesse, long enough to
fall in love with Sara Jane, one of Jesse’s
15 children.
After a festive wedding at Knight’s Station,
Shade and Sara started off on Shade’s
original trek to the rich flat lands on the
upper Myakka River. The settlement was
called
Myakka and Shade drove his cattle from there
down along a trail blazed by an earlier
cattleman named King (Kings Highway) to big
pens on the north side of Peace River. The
land was high there, the water deep and the
Charlotte Harbor dock was an ideal spot from
which to load the cattle onto waiting
waiting Spanish ships bound for Cuba and
South America.
Shade was always paid in Spanish gold which
he placed in his saddlebag and guarded
carefully on the long ride back to Myakka.
Once home, he would toss the bag over in a
corner of the barn until he had time to
count it and carry it to the nearest bank
some distance off in Bradentown as it was
then called. Shade was a highly religious
man, a lay preacher who proceeded to build
three churches in the area within two
years. One was in Pine Level and another in
Myakka; the latter has been preserved and
still stands in the town. He also built a
school house for the itinerant teachers who
traveled the countryside.
In the Punta Gorda area, shipments of beeves
were at their highest between 1901 and
1908. Cattle were driven out Marion Avenue
to a loading dock west of town and herded
onto boats sailing to Cuba. Round-up time
was one of excitement and noise in town.
The cattle had been roaming the vast open
range, were used to their freedom and
rebelled against the pushing drovers. The
cowboys, on the other hand, found the
herding job a thirsty and sweltering one,
their arrival in town after weeks on the
range was exhilarating to the extent that
many riders ended the day in the town
calaboose after one too many for the road.
In 1908 Cuba imposed an import tax on
cattle, about $2.50 per head on common
cattle and shipments gradually ceased with
concentration now on domestic sales. The
outstanding cattlemen, legends unto
themselves were: the King brothers, J.W.
Whidden, R.E. Whidden, T.S. Knight and Frank
Knight. Following these earlier cattlemen
were A.C. Frizell and W. Luther Koon. 
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to be
continued in the August Edition of Punta Gorda
Life..... |
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