Fort Myers Jail Inmate Search

Before 1885 Fort Meyers, Florida had no real jail. The closest citizens could get to law enforcement was to contact the sheriff via a boat ride to Key West. The Monroe County Jail in Key West made a poor-man’s attempt to look like the much more elaborate brick courthouse, only two years older.

Being a port of entry, a great many seaman came ashore to drink and party and the many herds of cattle required plenty of rough riding cowboys to wrangle them around the port. With so many men living bachelor lives there came plenty of carousing and drinking in the saloons when passing through Fort Meyers in those early times. Before long the problem became so serious that the town folk decided something had to be done to enforce a little order in this town of less than 400 inhabitants.Howell L. Parker who ran Fort Meyers’ first general store, became postmaster. Shortly after that time he, was elected mayor with the idea of having a safer and quieter town. In the rough and tumble 1880s the citizens of Fort Meyers had finally had too much of the every day and night exhibitions of over-exuberant cowboys whose liquored-up disturbances in the town’s streets became quite unacceptable. The entire population of fort Meyers - all 349 citizens – elected to have a town marshal. Mayor Parker appointed Columbus L. Oliver to be the town’s first marshal.

Notable residents of Fort Meyers such as Thomas Alva Edison and Henry Ford praised the calm and relatively crime-free city. Henry Ford had a winder residence there while Mr. Edison worked and lived in his laboratory creating at a furious pace.

In 1885, construction of a real courthouse began. Marshal Oliver then had a basement jail in which to house prisoners until they could appear in court the following day. Although little remains of the early history, it is believed that Marshall Oliver imprisoned his miscreants in the basement of the former courthouse which was supplanted in 1887 by a more substantial courthouse. That followed eventually a more substantial courthouse and jail to house prisoners. Today, the Fort Meyers Police Department is a modern facility that little resembles the early beginnings of law enforcement in the tiny village of Fort Meyers, Florida, a thriving city today nearly 50,000.