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.
When Ponce de León’s Spanish reached this coast in the early 1500s, they named the island La Isla de San Marco and met the Calusa, who fought them off; by the 1700s, war and disease had emptied the chiefdom. Centuries later the pioneers came. William T. Collier founded the village of Marco in 1870, and his son, Capt. Bill Collier, opened the Olde Marco Inn in 1896 — still serving guests today. For decades the island ran on clams and oysters, canned at Caxambas Pass and shipped north.
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.
