Fort Myers Palms

The Fort Myers Palms of Fort Myers, Florida played a single season in 1926, and their founder made sure the name meant something. Local businessman John Wall Hendry won the city a franchise in central Florida's professional league and chose "Palms" because it was, in his words, short and sweet and meant something: Fort Myers had been known as the City of Palms ever since Thomas Edison planted royal palms along McGregor Boulevard in front of his winter estate.

The Palms opened at Terry Park on April 22, 1926, beating the St. Petersburg Saints 3-0 in front of 1,500 fans. Shortstop Mike Bouza tripled in the third inning and then stole home, and pitcher Joe Hernandez scattered nine hits for a complete-game shutout. The club played respectable baseball all year, going 34-25 in the first half and 33-27 in the second, but went through four managers in a single season and couldn't draw enough fans to cover its bills. The franchise folded after one year.

Terry Park went on to a long second life as a spring training home for big league clubs, and Fort Myers remains a spring training town today. The Palms remain the only professional team ever to carry the city's vintage-era name.

The Palms' league began play in 1919 as a Class D circuit of six teams clustered across central Florida, tracing what would later become the I-4 corridor decades before the interstate existed. The circuit ran through 1928, went dark during the Depression, returned in 1936, paused again for World War II, and resumed in 1946. Unlike most minor leagues of the era, it never truly died; the same circuit still operates across Florida today.