History is full of eddies and currents, but certain themes emerge that give a community clues to both its future and its past. For example, Charlotte County was born in the cockpit of rapid social change, propelled from the Jazz Age into the Great Depression. Communities like Englewood or Cleveland with dreams of becoming metropolises lost their city charters when the music stopped and the well ran dry. Boom and bust. The cycle continued as a construction boom transformed the county during the second half of the 20th century before the major developer of Port Charlotte went belly up.Vernon Peeples, the late, great preeminent historian of Punta Gorda, told me how city founder Isaac Trabue brought the railroad to what was then called Trabue. Soon the railroad backed a play by Trabue's enemies to swallow up his town and give it the name we know today. Now, if Allegiant Airlines can open Sunseeker's doors, we'll see a second revolution spawned by the transportation industry. And that's no coincidence. Punta Gorda was once the southernmost point of the entire North American railroad system, with shipping links south and west to Cuba and New Orleans. Allegiant has capitalized on our proximity to the Midwest and our beckoning breezes. The railroad built the legendary Punta Gorda Hotel, the 19th century version of destination resort travel. Allegiant's Sunseeker may be the 21st century version of that iconic job generator. Geography is our destiny.Now, as we try to make a new society in the face of the deadliest pandemic to strike our community, is not the time to hide our voices. Now is the time to tell our stories. Here is the place to celebrate the people who made Charlotte County's first century

At the end of the Civil War, the area around Charlotte County was the southernmost frontier in the United States. Americans rushed south for the promise of cheap land in paradise. Albert W. Gilchrist peddled that dream with great fanfare, but his outsized legacy as a driver of the area's growth comes with considerable baggage. As Charlotte County strives to reinvent itself once again, historian Ted Ehmann provides a historical lost-and-found where heroes fall from grace and new heroes are created. It's an account that predates the arrival of the railroad by millennia, weaving its way from the Calusa kingdom to present day, stripping the remnants of myth created by early developers' utopian promises.

An illustrated history of Charlotte and Mechlenburg County. North Carolina, paired with histories of the local companies.

The bustling metropolis of Charlotte is constantly growing and changing. Yet there are spirits from the past that refuse to give way to modern growth, or to be forgotten. The ghost of a Confederate officer, complete with his wooden leg, still appears at historic Cedar Grove. A longdead fireman continues to hang around his old station, and even changes clothes there. At the venerable Manor Theater, the spirit of a former manager often materializes late at night; he sometimes helps with the sweeping. A deceased bootlegger still tries to produce alcohol for his customers. And one small Charlotte house is so haunted that a former resident describes the interior as liquid black, which absorbs even light. Despite the Queen City's long and rich history, until now there has been no published collection of ghost stories from the region. These 19 tales gathered by Stephanie Burt Williams, and enhanced by her superb photographs, were worth the wait.