Day to all! Did you know a picture is not only worth a thousand words, but can literally cause folks to move? Frank Rigell was born in September 1901 on the family farm near Slocomb, Alabama, a small town southwest of Dothan, just across the Florida state line. The youngest of seven, when he was about 2 years old, his Dad moved the family to town and opened a dry goods store, J. C. Rigell and Company. Frank grew up helping out at the store and in his late teens, pitched for a semi-pro team out of Sheffield in northwest Alabama near Muscle Shoals. It wasn’t uncommon in those days for just about every town to have a community supported ball team.
It also wasn’t uncommon for young men to earn a few extra dollars working during the season in Florida’s citrus groves. When some of Frank’s friends did just that, one of them sent him a picture post card with palm trees silhouetted against a magnificent Florida sunset. When his friends returned, Frank asked about the postcard, inquiring if what it depicted is real. When assured that it was, right then and there he decided Florida is where he wanted to be. Once asked if the postcard that really brought him to Florida might have been one of those showing a bathing beauty about to get her rear end bitten by an alligator, he just chuckled and said, “No, it was the sunset”.
With Florida on his mind, Frank, who didn’t finish high school, enrolled in Dothan’s business college, earning a diploma. He then took out an ad in Jacksonville’s newspaper, The Florida Times-Union, seeking employment. After a brief stint at a lumber yard in Cairo, Georgia, his dream was fulfilled when, at 22 years old, he took a job in Haines City. From there, he was transferred as payroll clerk to a crate factory in Nocatee, just up the road from Punta Gorda. When the timber was cut out, he went to Woodmere, a sawmill community between Englewood and Venice that no longer exists.
He must have impressed his bosses because he was about to take a job in Lake Garfield, near Bartow, when asked to manage one of the company’s lumber yards. Although nervous at the prospect, he took the offer, arriving in Punta Gorda during 1925 to run West Coast Lumber and Supply’s (West Coast) yard on Taylor Road, close by the railroad tracks where Quality Self Storage is today.
Now, while in Nocatee, a pretty young school teacher, whose brothers-in-law also worked at the crate factory, had caught Frank’s eye. Rosa Fred Reynolds’, “Freddie” to her friends, family had come to Nocatee in 1904, when she was just one year old, and was in the citrus business. They were from Newton, Alabama, a small town just northwest of Dothan, not 20 miles from Slocomb. He must have caught her eye too because they married in 1926, one year after she graduated from Florida State College for Women in Tallahassee. Freddie taught in Punta Gorda’s elementary schools until her retirement in the early 1960’s. They had two daughters, Peggy and Jean. Peggy would marry Vic Desguin in 1951.
During the Great Depression, West Coast was about to close its Punta Gorda yard when Frank persuaded them to let him purchase it. Thus, it became Rigell Lumber and Supply. The business was kept alive by not only serving Punta Gorda and nearby areas, but by developing a clientele on islands in Pine Island Sound, particularly Sanibel and Captiva, locations the larger yards in Fort Myers were apparently not interested in. Rigell Lumber and Supply operated until the late 1950’s when Frank sold the business to A. C. Frizzell, shortly after Frizzell sold the ranchland that would become Port Charlotte. He was asked back to liquidate the yard when Mr. A. C. died a few years later. One panel of the mural on Quality Self Storage’s Taylor Road side depicts the lumber yard.
Frank’s later years were spent pursuing his two passions, golf and baseball. He also was an early president of the Punta Gorda Kiwanis Club and served on Punta Gorda’s City Council in the early 1960’s. Freddie passed away in 1966 and Frank remarried 5 years later, taking longtime family friend Lou Persons as his bride. He passed away in March 1999 and is interred at Charlotte Memorial Gardens, alongside Freddie.
Visit Charlotte County’s website to view Rigell related photographs. Select “Community Services”, then “Libraries and History”. Click on “Physical Items”, then “Archive Search”. Enter the subject of your search on the “Search” line. Photographs can also be viewed on the Punta Gorda History Center’s website. Select “Online Collection”, then “Keyword Search” and enter the search criteria.
Check out History Services’ yearlong project, “Telling Your Stories: History in the Parks”. It began in January 2021 with placement of the first interpretive sign “Charlotte Harbor Spa” at South County Regional Park. The last was dedicated December 15, 2021 at Centennial Park featuring Florida postcards. All dedicated signs can be viewed at online library resources. Select “Programs and Services”, then “History Services” and “Virtual Programs”.
Visit the same site to access recently released oral histories featuring 40 local folks. Select “History Services” and scroll down, or phone 941-629-7278, to find out what history related programs and videos are available.
“Did You Know” appears, typically, every other Wednesday, courtesy of this newspaper and the Charlotte County Historical Society. The Society’s mission is to help promote and preserve Charlotte County’s rich history. We are also always looking for volunteers and interested individuals to serve as board members. If you believe our area’s history is as important as we do, please visit Charlotte County Historical Society on-line at https://cchistoricalsociety.com/, or call 941- 769-1270 for more information.
September 13 column
