Iconic Landmark Has Endured

The Naples Pier has to be Collier County’s most iconic landmark. Originally constructed in 1888, the Pier is the quintessential image of Naples that goes all the way back to the city's beginning.

It's been battered and beaten time after time by hurricanes, starting in 1910, right up to Hurricane Ian in 2022. It was destroyed in back-to-back years by hurricanes in 1944 and 1945. And of course, Hurricane Donna, whose reputation has resonated in Collier County for decades, destroyed the Pier in 1960.

The Naples Pier was originally constructed as a freight and passenger dock when Naples had less than 100 residents. It was 600 feet long and reached to 18 feet of water. The Pier was increased to 1,000 feet after being destroyed by the 1910 hurricane.

In its infancy the Pier delivered guests to the nearby Naples Hotel, which slept 20-30 guests. Hotel guests could dock their boats and take a narrow-gauge tram road from the Pier to the hotel. The Pier was also where goods arrived in Naples and where the mail was delivered. Early settlers built their homes close to the Pier.

But the real story of the Naples Pier is best be told by people of a certain age with lifelong memories of a simpler time in Naples.

Faye Brown, 81, recalls the Pier in the 1950s when she was a teenager. Her uncle, an ambulance driver, received an emergency call from the Pier. 

“My uncle Davy Weeks was driving an ambulance,” Faye Brown said, "and was training his nephew to drive. They received a call from the Naples Pier that someone was having a heart attack. So, with the trainee behind the wheel, they made a hasty trip to the Pier.

“In his excitement, my cousin forgot to back onto the Pier. He ran the ambulance up on the Pier and there wasn't enough room to carry the man on a stretcher between the ambulance and the side rails of the Pier. He had to back the ambulance off the Pier, turn it around and back up onto the Pier. I believe my cousin was only about 17. He was excited about driving onto the Naples Pier. This is not a fishing story, but the guy having the heart attack had been fishing,” Brown said with a laugh.

Brown attended the original Naples High School, which is now the campus of Gulfview Middle School at 255 6th Street South. She was part of the last class to graduate there in 1959.

"What I enjoyed about the Naples Pier in the 1950s,” Brown said, "was when we had our exams in high school and had a couple hours between exams, a bunch of us girls would bring our swimsuits to school with us and go to the beach for a swim in our free time. We always made our way down to the Pier and sometimes walked to the end just to have something to do.”

David Nelson, 63, remembers walking down the beach to the Pier with his high school buddies in the 1970s. Nelson was a well-muscled 6’4” eighth grader when he came to Naples with his family in 1973. He remembers his dad taking him fishing at the Pier.

"I caught a real nice redfish,” David Nelson recalls, “and I was the only one to catch one. Dad was trying to catch one himself.”

Nelson remembers seeing kids jump off the pier, even though that activity had been prohibited since 1960.

 "I remember the no jumping off the Pier signs at the end of the Pier,” Nelson said, "and I remember some kids jumped off and the police were there at the beach ready for them.”

As a high schooler in the mid-1970s, Nelson remembers when there were just two high schools in town, Naples, and Lely. For a period in the 1970s, before Lely High School was completed, Naples and Lely students attended Naples High together. Students from both schools would often converge on the Pier in the evenings.

“It was friendly,” Nelson recalls, "You'd run in to some Naples High kids—probably more Naples High kids because they lived closer to the Pier.”

Who knows how many first kisses happened in the long shadows of the Pier at night. 

“Those were great times,” Nelson recalls with a hearty laugh. "I would have cherished them a little bit more had I realized then just how cool it was to be able go down there when you were in your teens.”

Nelson remembers Duke, the Pier guard, who had been a professional wrestler. Duke enjoyed interacting with the high school kids who hung out at the Pier at night.

“He would talk about his wrestling days,” Nelson said. "He definitely had a wrestler’s build. He was short, he was bald. You could tell his stories were true. He was always in uniform, so you couldn't see how muscular he was. But you could see he was stout.”

Nelson said the Pier isn’t like it was in the old days.

"You know,” he said, "you walk down the Pier today and no one's caught anything. No one's line is singing like it does when you've got one on the line. It seemed like in the early days when you went down to the Pier, either someone was catching a fish, or someone was cleaning fish. And now there ain't no one catching any fish and ain't no one cleaning fish when you walk down the Pier. I mean, it's turned into a tourist thing instead of a local thing, if that makes sense.”

Nelson made some lasting memories at the Pier with his mother when she was in her 90s.

"It definitely brings back some fine memories,” Nelson said. "No ifs, ands or doubts about that. I don’t know how many times my mom, in her later years would say, ‘Let’s go down to the Pier. I don't know how many more times I'm going to be able to go.' So, we would go down there often in her later stages, I would take her down to the Pier.”

Faye Brown is satisfied to remember the Pier from her home in the Georgia mountains. 

"I love pictures of Naples Pier,” Brown said, "and I don't think Naples would be the same without the Pier. I've heard of many people who look forward to going to the Pier while in Naples. At my age, I'm never going again. It is a nice memory though."