What the brochures promised, the island delivered: a six-mile crescent of sugar-white sand, among the widest beaches in Florida, with shelling good enough to draw collectors from around the world. Marco is the largest of the Ten Thousand Islands — the maze of mangrove keys where the Gulf meets the Everglades — and the gateway to all of it: boat trips out through the islands, dolphins and roseate spoonbills, and the warm, shallow, almost-waveless water that makes the place feel like a long, lazy float.
Look at Marco from the air and you see a town laced with water — thousands of homes on navigable canals, a whole island engineered for boats. That is the work of three brothers. In the 1960s, Elliott, Robert, and Frank Mackle and their Deltona Corporation bought the island, dredged the mangroves into a grid of waterways and waterfront lots, and sold the dream of a planned island paradise to middle-class America. Marco opened to the public in 1965, drew tens of thousands to its grand opening, and a bridge soon linked it to the mainland. The quiet fishing island became one of Florida’s most sought-after addresses almost overnight.
Why People Visit Marco Island
Marco Island rewards visitors who want wide white sand, warm shallow water, and shells underfoot, with a rare depth of history close by. Add the boat trips into the Ten Thousand Islands and the year-round Gulf sun, and the case makes itself.
