This year marks a milestone worth celebrating. It has been 100 years since Everglades City School awarded its very first diploma.

The graduating class of 1926 consisted of exactly one student.

One graduate.

One diploma.

One young person who represented the hopes of an entire little frontier town.

That first commencement may have been small, but it symbolized something much bigger. It meant this isolated community believed its children deserved an education, no matter how difficult it was to provide one.

Built on Determination

Long before there was a school, there wasn’t even a schoolhouse.

In 1893, Everglades’ first classes were taught inside the Storter family’s home along the Barron River—the building we know today as the Rod & Gun Club. Before there were classrooms, hallways, or playgrounds, there was simply a community determined to teach its children.

That determination was tested again and again.

The first school building was destroyed by storms. Another was lost in the devastating hurricane of 1910. Each time, the people of Everglades built another one. In a town where hurricanes, isolation, and flooding were simply facts of life, education remained important enough to start over whenever nature knocked it down.

When Barron Collier developed Everglades City into the county seat during the 1920s, the school expanded to include grades through graduation. In 1926, Everglades City School awarded its very first diploma.

A century later, that single diploma has grown into generations of Gators.

Generations of Gators

For many longtime families, Everglades City School isn’t just where they went to school. It’s where their parents went. Their grandparents. Today, their children and grandchildren walk the same halls.

There aren’t many places left where generations of one family can say they all attended the very same school.

The school itself has changed over the years, but its heart hasn’t.

Before the Chokoloskee Causeway opened in 1956, many students made the trip to school by boat every day. Imagine heading off to class across the water instead of climbing onto a school bus. It was simply part of growing up in the Ten Thousand Islands.

Today’s school building dates to the mid-1990s, but Everglades City School remains one of the most unique public schools in Florida. It is still Collier County’s only public school serving students from pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade under one roof.

With fewer than 200 students, everyone knows everyone. Older students help younger ones. Teachers often teach multiple generations of the same family. Friday night games aren’t just school events—they’re community gatherings where neighbors cheer for children they’ve watched grow up since birth.

That’s something special.

For generations, Everglades City School has educated the children of the Ten Thousand Islands. Some graduates stayed here to raise families of their own. Others built careers across Florida and beyond, but they’ll always share one thing in common—they’re Gators.

As we celebrate 100 years since that very first graduating class of one, we’re really celebrating something much larger—the generations of families, teachers, and neighbors who believed this little school was worth building, rebuilding, supporting, and protecting.

Here’s to the next hundred years of Everglades City Gators.

You may also be interested in Our Town… 100 Years Ago or What’s the Oldest Building in Everglades City?