No one enjoyed the road more than Harley “Hal” Burchinal, and no one had a better time as passengers than his. All but set to retire in 1972 coming from Cleveland to Cape Coral, Burchinal couldn’t shake the driving itch and became the conductor of choice for countless local residents ...
While a lot has changed in Cape Coral in 50 years since incorporation, one thing remains the same -- small businesses are the backbone of the economy. Cape pioneers often had deep roots in established areas but they transplanted them here in what, at the time, was just a ...
From humble beginnings, the Cape Coral Police Department has become ranked as one of the safest cities in Florida year after year. Established in 1971, CCPD began with just three patrol officers, a sergeant and chief when they first set up shop in the former Gulf American Corporation ...
(Editor's note: The following story was published in the Aug. 13, 1970, edition of the Cape Coral Breeze.) Cape Coral voters will go to the polls Tuesday, Aug. 18, to decide the fate of a proposition to incorporate Cape Coral as a city. The election, for which more than 6,000 voters are ...
Cape Coral’s first mayor, Paul Fickinger, took office in 1970, only a year after the first talk of incorporating began. He spoke then as city leaders do today. “Most of us visualize the Cape Coral of the future to be a fairly sizable city,” he said the week he was elected mayor. “I ...
“The first City Council and the first city manager laid a stable foundation for this city to grow on,” according to Cape Coral’s first Mayor Paul Fickinger. “To be sure, we had plenty of problems and there were some clashes of personality on the City Council, but all in all, they ...
(Published in the Cape Coral Breeze Aug. 22, 1974) (The following is the text of the invocation delivered by the Rev. Robert Stevens, pastor of Cape Coral United Methodist Church upon the opening of the then-new City Hall.) O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. We ...
In August 1970, nearly 4,000 Cape Coral voters went to the polls with one key issue on their mind — to approve incorporation, or not. While the vote was close, Cape Coral was to become a city. The final tally was 2,067 to 1,798 on election night; 2,249-1,955 after the absentee ballots ...
When Jim Carroll first became a police officer in 1964, he was given a pamphlet entitled “Rocks in the Roadway.” It talked about how to overcome obstacles by working around them. When Carroll was named second in command of the city of Cape Coral’s first police department in 1971, there ...
In 1970, Cape Coral had little more than 10,000 residents and much of Del Prado Boulevard was still a dirt road. Still, those residents voted to become a city, and Aug. 18, 2020 marked the 50th anniversary of that historic election day with the city holding a re-enactment of the signing of ...
