ENTERTAINMENT

Alva Museum receives $50,000 state grant for restoration

Special to The News-Press

The Alva Museum is $50,000 closer to restoring its historic buildings and making them available to all, thanks to a Florida Division of Historical Resources special category grant for preservation and upgrading handicap accessibility.

Alva's historic library building is now a museum featuring the Caloosahatchee riverfront town's history.

Project plans include repairing the siding, porch, windows and floors, upgrading electrical/plumbing systems and installing a ramped deck to provide universal public access to the building, which housed Lee County’s first library.

Built in 1909 on a prominent corner of the Caloosahatchee riverfront town, the Alva Library building is architecturally and historically significant. The town’s founder, Captain Peter Nelson donated the land, and settlers, some of whose descendants still serve on the nonprofit’s board, raised the building, which the association has owned continuously since 1909.

Now a museum showcasing Lee County’s historic rural heritage, the property also includes the 1901 Owanita Chapel, which was moved to the site in the 1970s. Its collection includes Ice Age mastodon bones, a Seminole dugout canoe and an array of the tools, clothing and furniture of the town’s founding families.

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The Alva Library Association, which runs the museum in cooperation with the Alva Garden Club, is still working to raise at least $419,000 more to complete the renovations.

Learn more at alvaflmuseum.com/about-us.html. The fundraising page can be found at gofundme.com/rxaaf5d.