Port Charlotte, Florida is a census-designated place, or CDP for U.S. Census purposes. It is located in Charlotte County, and part of the Punta Gorda Metropolitan Statistical Area. The first tribe to make their home in the Port Charlotte area were the nomadic paleo-Indians. The name derives from the tribal subsistence, as they survived by chasing big game such as woolly mammoth southward during the last ice age around 10,000 BC.
At the time, Port Charlotte and its surrounding regions were not coastal areas, as the peninsula of Florida was much wider than it is today and much drier. As the ice caps melted over thousands of years, the sea level rose and Florida assumed the shape it has today. The paleo-Indians gave way to the Calusa, who thrived on the southwest Florida coast and numbered over 50,000 in population when the first Spaniards reached the peninsula in the 1500s. Their arrival devastated the Calusa, as Euroean diseases such as small pox and measles decimated the population. Later, the Seminole tribe would arrive as they were forced from the north and establish themselves on the peninsula.
In 1819, Florida was ceded by the Spanish, becoming a U.S. state in 1845. For the first 100 years of statehood, Port Charlotte remained mostly undeveloped. Most of the roads and railroads at the turn of the 20th century show that most which lead into southwest Florida bypassed the Port Charlotte area. Aside from a few cattle raches and small scale agricultural holdings, the area was mostly uninhabited. This changed after World War II, when people first began to notice the abundant opportunities and pleasant climate for developing land in Florida. By the 1950s, the now defunct land developer began building on both of Florida's coastlines. Among the areas they planned and developed was the Port Charlotte area. Ultimately, Port Charlotte would become the most populated center of population in Charlotte County, although like most GDC developments, Port Charlotte remained unincorporated land.
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