EVERGLADES CITY, Fla. — Once a 1920s laundry on the edge of civilization, an Everglades City building on Broadway Avenue West now houses the Museum of the Everglades.

What You Need To Know

  •  Florida on a Tankful visits the Museum of the Everglades

  •  The museum is located at 105 Broadway Ave. W. in Everglades City — in a building constructed in the 1920s

  • The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m.

  • Admission is free

In the early 20th Century, the cleaners arrived for busy hotels and just before the east-west portion of the Tamiami Trail opened.

“And it changed Florida forever,” said museum curator Thomas Lockyear. “It just expanded the economy — you know, made people free to move across the state by automobile.”

The museum is located in Collier County — named for Baron Collier, an advertising executive that Lockyear said had a vision of progress for the new world.

“By the time he’s 26 years old, he’s made his first million,” Lockyear said.

Except it wasn’t a new world to the Seminole Indians, who escaped there after three wars.

“These were people that really adapted,” said Lockyear. “They learned how to build shelter and transportation that worked really well for the Everglades.”

The canoe was their mode of transportation.

A scale model created by Seminole artist Brain Zepeda sits prominently in the museum for visitors to see.

“What I want them to get — what I wasn’t them to understand, is that there were people living here before the road," said Lockyear

And he said they watched as their world splintered when the road destroyed their waterways and drove them from their homes.

Their story is told at the museum as well — and the indigenous people that came before them.

It’s all part of the Everglades history, and Florida’s history.