Lee County Courthouse celebrates 100 years

FORT MYERS, Fla.- Commissioners and the community celebrated the Old Lee County Courthouse’s birthday Tuesday morning.

It opened in 1915, and underwent a $5 million renovation in 1989.

Ann Senseman’s grandfather was the superintendent of construction for the building.

“There’s a letter in the courthouse in a display case that introduces my grandfather, Mr. Harris, to the city people here,” said Senseman.

So for Senseman, being on the courthouse steps for its 100th birthday Tuesday morning meant everything.

“It’s really special because I’m probably, I am the last one of his grandchildren alive that would remember this,” said Senseman.

Senseman though, won’t be the last to remember its history. The Clerk of Court’s office is making a time capsule for 2015.

“In the future, we’ll have the iPhone 4 for them to see and the 8GB jump drive. Then we have a lot of photos of 100 years ago, as compared to today; pictures of the court house and pictures of people,” said Clerk of the Circuit Court Linda Doggett.

Doggett said a time capsule from 1915 was found in when the courthouse underwent the renovation in ’89.

Inside were tools, articles and letters.

“You see old manual labor tools and you see how interesting it would have been in that day and time have to use tools like that to get things done. So if you think about 100 years from now, people will hopefully look at these items and say, how interesting that somebody could have used this ancient technology in their everyday lives,” said Doggett.

The time capsule will be sealed in the clerk’s vault sometime in December 2015.