Mound House Museum and Calusa Indian Site, Fort Myers Beach
Another important Calusa site near my home
Mound House is about ten miles from my house. It sits on a point in Estero Bay not far from Mound Key, home of Calusa Kings.
This shows how close the Mound House was to Mound Key.
View looking up at Mound House from down by the water. The upper floor has some great displays with Calusa artifacts such as tools made of shells, ceremonial masks, etc.
View from the path in front of Mound House showing Matanzas Pass, the waterway connecting Estero Bay with Matanzas Harbor in Fort Myers Beach.
These are two my favorite photos from my visit to Mound House. The museum has an underground section where you can get next to the inside of the shell mound.
The top image is a wide shot showing the layers of shells the Calusas used to build up the mound.
The bottom image is a close-up of the mound. You can see some of the different types of shells they used.
I don’t plan on including pictures of too many signs from museum displays, but this is helpful and important for the book I’m writing, Calusa Gold. I did a quick Google search on the average height of Aztec men, and only found one that said they were as tall as 5’6”, and most said shorter. This fits well with my plot, as I want the Calusa warriors in my book to be much taller and physically imposing than the Aztecs.