One cannot visit the Everglade City area without stopping by the Smallwood Store to get a taste of history in the area. Traced back over 2,000 years Chokoloskee Island where the store was located is only one of the 10,000 islands in the area.
The last native American Indians to occupy the area before being inhabited by the white man was the Seminole Indian tribe who had fished and hunted the area for decades. Whites began to settle the territory in the late nineteenth century and survived by farming, hunting and fishing the fertile land.
As in many parts of the expanding frontier at that time there was a need for a trading post and Ted Smallwood fulfilled that need beginning in 1906. Like all trading posts it began by trading furs, hides and produce providing staples like flour and sugar to the pioneers. It also served as a post office and general store.
This exceptional piece of American history was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and remained open until 1982. It still sits on the original site overlooking Chokoloskee Bay. Later, the descendants of Small reopened the store as a museum. Mallory Smallwood McMillin, the great grand-daughter of Ed Smallwood grew up in the store when it was converted by her mother to a museum.
In more recent history the neighbors and fans rallied around the Smallwood Store when a feud with a developer claimed to own the only road to the store and built a fence across the road to block it from traffic. Smallwood eventually won that suit in 2015 and the museum has since reopened.
The last native American Indians to occupy the area before being inhabited by the white man was the Seminole Indian tribe who had fished and hunted the area for decades. Whites began to settle the territory in the late nineteenth century and survived by farming, hunting and fishing the fertile land.
As in many parts of the expanding frontier at that time there was a need for a trading post and Ted Smallwood fulfilled that need beginning in 1906. Like all trading posts it began by trading furs, hides and produce providing staples like flour and sugar to the pioneers. It also served as a post office and general store.
This exceptional piece of American history was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1974 and remained open until 1982. It still sits on the original site overlooking Chokoloskee Bay. Later, the descendants of Small reopened the store as a museum. Mallory Smallwood McMillin, the great grand-daughter of Ed Smallwood grew up in the store when it was converted by her mother to a museum.
In more recent history the neighbors and fans rallied around the Smallwood Store when a feud with a developer claimed to own the only road to the store and built a fence across the road to block it from traffic. Smallwood eventually won that suit in 2015 and the museum has since reopened.
