Waterfront, Punta Gorda - First Home Site

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On June 22, 1876  James Lockhart and his wife chose a home site on the south side of  Charlotte Harbor where the city of Punta Gorda is today.  Born in GA, James Lockhart moved to present-day Gainesville.  After serving in Co. B, 2nd FL Infantry and wounded at Gettysburg he and Josephine married and ended up at a new settlement on the Peace River's north shore.  By June 1876 they moved near Nathan Decoster's settlement of Harborview on the harbor's southside where the Punta Gorda Waterfront Hotel and Suites now stands.  The lack of potable water was a problem for earlier settlement attempts.  James found water in his well and they moved.  In 1879 the Lockharts sold out to James Lanier.  Lanier expanded his land holdings and sold them to Isaac Trabue in 1883.  Trabue platted a new town in 1885 which was incorporated as Punta Gorda in 1887.  Marion McAdow was a painter and she painted this picture of the house that was on the land Isaac Trabue bought from James M. Lanier.  

211 Charlotte Avenue - Sacred Heart Church - original church building

The first celebration of a Catholic mass in what is now Charlotte County is said to have been when Ponce deLeon arrived here in the 1520s, some 500 years ago, but the roots of an actual Sacred Heart Parish start in 1892 when a visiting priest said a Mass in a store at Marion and King Street. A building dedicated to the parish, however, was not constructed until almost 40 years later.  Until then services were conducted in the Hotel Charlotte Harbor.  The first celebrated Mass at that first Sacred Heart Church sanctuary was at 10 a.m on Christmas morning  in 1929.  The original church seated 125 parishioners. The little church was replaced in 1965. And that structure after being badly damaged in 2004 by Charley was replaced by the current church building in 2008.  The church pictured here seated 125 parishioners.