In an earlier article I discussed the Punta Gorda mailing address of residents of Burnt Store Marina and the fact that we don’t actually live in Punta Gorda but rather in unincorporated Lee County or the City of Cape Coral.  This month we look a little closer at our relationship with the Charlotte-Lee county line.

The county line currently runs down the middle of Vincent Road on the north side of the BSM community and therefore all owners in Burnt Store Marina reside in and pay property taxes to Lee County.  I have been told by many people in the community that at one time the border ran along Charlee Road on the south side of Burnt Store Marina, as evidenced by the name of that road.  This theory has been reinforced over the last 20 years by a series of Charlotte and Lee county road maps published by the Dolph Map Company of Fort Lauderdale for various clients.  These maps show the county line jogging south down Burnt Store Road from Vincent and then heading west again along Charlee Road.   I have not been able to find any official corroboration for this irregular county line ever existing and the more detailed 2006 Dolph Atlas has corrected the error.

There are a number of detailed Charlotte and Lee county maps originating between 1921, when Charlotte was carved out from Desoto County (itself previously part of Manatee and Hillsborough counties) and 1972 when the developer Punta Gorda Isles, Inc. registered the PGI Section 22 plat in Lee County.  All of these maps show the county line where it is today.  The first legislative reference to the current county line was in an Act of the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Florida in December 1858 clarifying that the disputed border of what was then Monroe and Manatee Counties was to be between the Public Land Survey System townships 42S and 43S (which Vincent Road still follows today).

Lee County was split from Monroe County in 1887 and was named for Robert E. Lee.  Charlotte County took its name from the harbor whose gender changed from male to female when chart makers working for the English named it in tribute to Queen Charlotte Sophia, wife of King George III in 1775.  The Spanish had previously named it Carlos (Charles) Bay.

For any who think that map anomalies such as that reflected on the Dolph road maps are a modern phenomenon, they need look no further than some of the old maps of the area contained on the excellent online collections of David Rumsey, the University of South Florida and the University of Miami.  Some maps prepared between 1821 when Florida became a US Territory and 1887 use the current county line, some use Charlotte Harbor and the Charlotte River (which follows the current day Peace River, Shell Creek and a non-existent link to Lake Okeechobee), and many use the Caloosahatchee (also called the Sanybel River).  The east wall of Charlotte Harbor has therefore been shown on maps variously as part of the counties of St. Johns, Leigh Read, Mosquito, Hillsborough, Manatee, Seminole Indian Territory, Monroe and Lee. Confusion has thus always reigned!

There is very little most of us can do about the property tax consequences of residing in Lee County, but if you want to save 0.5% on your major capital expenditures, don’t forget that the sales and use tax if you turn south out of the main gate is 6.5% but 7% if you turn north.  Who knows, stimulating the Lee County economy might even help reduce our property taxes!