Memberships

The Estero Island Historic Society (EIHS) is dedicated to preserving and sharing the colorful history of our island.  Although we lost many archives and artifacts from our historic 1921-built cottage during Hurricane Ian in September 2022, EIHS has reopened with exhibits that portray the evolution of Fort Myers Beach from a Calusa settlement to a fishing village to a tourist destination.

Join us to support our rebuilding and outreach.  Here are just a few benefits.

  • Public meetings from January through April each year bring in speakers on local and regional history and ecology.
  • EIHS docents offer free tours of the EIHS museum to visitors on Saturdays from 10-12.  The tours lead the visitors through the 100 plus years of our island's modern history and thousands of years of pre-settler history.
  • The EIHS works with Beach Elementary School and Florida Gulf Coast University by offering presentations on our local history to interested students and teachers.

We also feature changing exhibits on my historical and environmental themes including

  • A century of hurricane impacts on Estero Island
  • Notable residents and visitors
  • Landmarks and historic sites
  • Matanzas Pass Nature Preserve and Estero Bay Aquatic Preserve.
  • The Calusa people who inhabited this area of thousands of years.
  • The changing face and purpose of local institutions.

Note: All memberships are annual, from January 1 through December 31.  If you have a lifetime membership, you are grandfathered in and do not need to renew.  We can no longer afford to offer lifetime memberships.