Page 60 - LIN M-J-J-2023 web-low

by Jeff Lytle

fter serving as a freight and passenger terminal where squalid, unhealthy conditions rallied community
starting in 1927 and later a museum telling leaders to champion its demolition in 1980. Slum residents
A Collier County’s story, and serving as the relocated to today’s nearby George Washington Carver
backdrop for the dedication of a Holocaust era boxcar Complex.
in 2008, the depot is working on launching the county’s Other Blacks, Townsend says, lived in the South Side of
first museum dedicated to Black history. Immokalee and worked in agriculture.
The project, launched quietly last year, when “African Americans made a living and lives for themselves
Hurricane Ian damaged the depot, seeks to convert an in our communities,” she says, “and those stories are worthy
underused Pullman baggage train car already at the site. of deeper understanding and telling.
It was left there by one of two rail lines which came in “We can put those local stories in context against the
and out of the depot until the late 1970s. backdrop of the baggage car and what the railroad industry
William Dwight, president of the supportive Friends meant for social mobility for African Americans throughout
of the Collier County Museum, says the Pullman is the country in the 20th century.”
appropriate because Blacks built the rail cars and served Vincent Keeys, president of the Collier County NAACP,
as porters. adds his perspective. "This community is the crown jewel of
Project leaders say their efforts can carry on while winter retreats but it is void of any kind of cultural centers,”
hurricane repairs continue at the depot. he says. “History has gone out of its way to erase particular
Collier County Museums Director Amanda pioneers that deserve recognition. The Naples Depot
Townsend says the Black history story is linked to understands this very well and we would like to share local
county founder Barron Gift Collier and his construction Black history with our community."
of the Tamiami Trail, where Blacks were among his Dwight says he hopes to maintain the exterior look of
“multicultural workforce.” the car while renovating the inside, which would include
The history also goes back to workers in the logging handicap access and air conditioning.
camps and sawmills in remote eastern Collier, she says. “I would very much like for the car to feature an oral
In the city of Naples, she instructs, Blacks resided history booth so that we could continue to gather stories
in the Ditch Bank settlement that now is Crayton from people who live in the community today,” Townsend
Cove and worked at the Naples Hotel. They moved to says. Dwight hopes to work with local PBS station WGCU
to videotape interviews, to supplement photos, artifacts and
McDonald’s Quarters shantytown in Central Naples,
paintings.

60
60 Life in Naples | May/June/July 2023