Fort Myers You Are My Home Flowering Florida; ocean-edged, lake dotted and sunshine soaked; breezed and fanned with water cooled winds fresh from their play-ground o'er Gulf and ocean; with no mountain range to halt and hold rain laden clouds, humidity is gone - banished it seems by the foresight of Nature's intention. Eons ago was a dirge chanted at the funeral of chill and cheerless weather. Four hundred miles further south than San Diego and yet no farther east than Cleveland, snuggling next the edge of Caloosahatchee's rippling waters; a short ride from the opalescence of the Gulf, is my home - Fort Myers. Nearby lie the beaches that are your set- ting, sloping borders of a shell-sand fringe- pounded to powder by the ceaseless waves of centuries of Time. O'erhead a deep blue Heaven, specked with fluffy clouds driven by the never failing winds of the semi- tropic trades; an ethereal arch, as a roof for my home, dipping to the west to sink into the myriad colored waters of the gulf- to the east ending in the vast Be- yond of the great Atlantic. A gem-city, rich in a thousand ways - fascinating to the eye; peopled with men and women, home build- ers and home keepers, by the manner of their birth; clean, well planned and managed, graced with Natures greatest gifts of soil, air water and vegetation. A thriving bustling place wrapt in the healthy fever of rapidly acquired wealth, yet ever awake to the needs of a safe and sane future. Surrounded by mar- velous back country - in places muck- the rotted fall of vegetable growth of centuries; muck equal to that of the fertile valley of the Nile. Road barred, you have been for years, to the eager, pleasure seeking pilgrim of America but now within reach; now shall the northern hordes worn by weary winters and battles of big business, seek out the glories of which they've heard - to revel in them. Rumor of your worth and beauty spreads fast among people of wealth and leisure. Thousands have come, hundreds have stayed and other thousands left but to return again. God hid you within what once was an impass- able terrain that the achievement of your finding might be the greater. But Man came - sturdy leather-handed pioneers with purpose; they came and saw a future, built homes and reared families; hewing and filling, grading the long smooth ribbons of road that have opened the treasure trove to the eager eyes of a waiting world. And the world has come in throngs - and will continue coming - settling here to delight in your glories - to grow still further with you. Some will spend the fortunes won in the stress and battle of business in other parts. Still others, farming the rich loamy lands shall take from out the soft soil-pad that tops your base of rock and coral the wealth of thriving crops. Your future is assured, your value known. And by the manner of your building you shall be judged. And, soundly built and sanely planned, you shall rise ever higher into your own place in the sun. Fort Myers, where Nature's work is finished, but where Man's has just begun - you are My Home. Don W. Wilkie, Secretary Chamber of Commerce