Bonita Springs was a survey camp on the Imperial River before it had any name at all. The Calusa people lived along the Imperial River and Estero Bay for thousands of years before European contact. The Spanish came in 1513 with Juan Ponce de León, the British took Florida in 1763 and gave it back in 1783, the United States annexed it in 1821, and Florida became the 27th state on March 3, 1845. In the 1870s, a crew of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyors pitched their tents along a slow southwest-flowing waterway and went to work mapping the coast; after they left, the homesteaders who came after them called the site Survey and the river Surveyor's Creek, and the names held for forty years. In the late 1880s an Alabama cotton planter named Braxton Bragg Comer — later Governor of Alabama — bought 6,000 acres around Survey to grow pineapples, bananas, coconuts, and citrus, and held on until the freezes of 1893 and 1894 killed his stock plants and sent him back to Alabama. Other small growers stayed and put in citrus, tomatoes, and tropical fruit along Surveyors Creek. In 1912, a Tennessee investor named J.H. Ragsdale, partnered with Dan Farnsworth of Fort Myers, platted the small town with streets and avenues; they rebranded the place as Bonita Springs and renamed the waterway the Imperial River, and the new names stuck. The road from Bonita Springs to Fort Myers opened in 1917, the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad's Fort Myers Southern Branch reached town in the 1920s, the Liles Hotel opened its doors at the river in 1926, and the Tamiami Trail was finished through town in 1928 — a four-step infrastructure build that turned the village into a roadside-attraction stop on the Tampa-to-Miami line. On February 22, 1936, two brothers named Bill and Lester Piper opened the Everglades Reptile Gardens, later renamed the Wonder Gardens, on Old 41 at the Imperial River crossing — one of the oldest continuously operating roadside attractions in Florida. Hurricane Donna hit Southwest Florida on September 10, 1960, and Hurricane Ian came ashore on September 28, 2022 — the two defining storms of the modern Bonita era, and the city rebuilt after both. Florida acquired the Lovers Key barrier islands as a state park in 1983, saving them from luxury condominiums. The City of Bonita Springs was designated a Preserve America Community in 2012. On the Imperial River since the Calusa.
The 1936 Wonder Gardens era is the second chapter. Bill and Lester Piper opened their roadside attraction on Old 41 on February 22, 1936, as the Everglades Reptile Gardens; the name moved to the Everglades Wonder Gardens as the exhibits broadened, and the family ran it for three generations until 2013. The City of Bonita Springs bought the property in 2015 to keep it from commercial development, and a non-profit has operated it since on city-owned land. The Wonder Gardens — three and a half acres on Old 41 — is one of the oldest continuously operating roadside attractions in Florida, and the long banyan trees on the grounds are a Bonita signature. Hurricane Donna landed on Southwest Florida on September 10, 1960, and Hurricane Ian came ashore on September 28, 2022; the two storms are the defining storms of the modern Bonita era, and the city has rebuilt after both. Lovers Key, the four-barrier-island chain just north of Bonita Beach, was preserved as a Florida state park in 1983 after being saved from luxury condominium development. Barefoot Beach Preserve, just south of the city line in Collier County, runs two miles of natural Gulf shoreline north of Wiggins Pass under the Saylor Trail boardwalk. The City of Bonita Springs received the Preserve America Community designation in 2012.
Why People Visit Bonita Springs Florida
- Walk Riverside Park and Old 41 — the historic downtown corridor on the Imperial River, with the 1926 Liles Hotel housing the Bonita Springs Historical Society, the bandshell, and the original Cracker-style wooden-frame buildings that line the original Tamiami Trail spine through town.
- Visit the Everglades Wonder Gardens on Old 41 — the 1936 roadside attraction founded by brothers Bill and Lester Piper as the Everglades Reptile Gardens, now a non-profit on city-owned land with banyan trees, rescued reptiles and birds, and the original mid-century roadside-Florida signage. One of the oldest continuously operating roadside attractions in the state.
- Kayak the Imperial River from Imperial River Park — the kayak launch on the river inside the city, with shaded paths under the cypress and oaks and herons in the shallows.
- Walk Bonita Beach Park — the public Gulf shoreline at the western end of Bonita Beach Road, with shelling, sunset views, and dolphin sightings offshore.
- Walk Lovers Key State Park — the four-barrier-island state park between Estero Bay and the Gulf, with 2.5 miles of beach, 5 miles of multi-use trails through maritime hammock on Black Island, kayak and boat launches into Estero Bay, and a Discovery Center. The land was donated to Florida and preserved as a state park in 1983 after being saved from luxury condominium development. Check current park status; some facilities continued post-Hurricane-Ian recovery into 2025.
- Walk Barefoot Beach Preserve just south of the city line in Collier County — 342 acres of Collier County park along two miles of natural Gulf shoreline north of Wiggins Pass, with the Saylor Trail boardwalk, gopher tortoise habitat, and quiet dunes.
- Paddle out to Mound Key Archaeological State Park in Estero Bay — the 30-foot Calusa shell mound that was the believed capital of the Calusa chiefdom, just north of Bonita in Estero Bay. Accessible by kayak from Lovers Key or Koreshan State Park.
- Visit Koreshan State Park up the road in Estero — the historic site of Dr. Cyrus Teed's 1894 commune along the Estero River.
- Drive Old 41 from the Liles Hotel north past the Wonder Gardens and the historic downtown blocks to Estero, then up to Fort Myers.
- Drive south on US-41 to Naples (10 minutes), or north to Estero / Fort Myers Beach / Sanibel and Captiva Islands.
