[Eugene Church]

The History of South Island

It is thought that South Island had its first inhabitants around the year 1000... the Sawani Indians settled the area... "Sawani" means "fierce people"... and they were described by historians and researchers as war-like people... the Sawani were resistant to colonization and savagely attacked any explorers who came into their territory... the Sawani were fishermen, they did not farm... they used shells on the island for utensils, jewelry, tools and weapons... by the 1800s most of the Sawani had died out... many were lost in warfare, some sold as slaves, while others died of diseases such as smallpox, measles and malaria.

According to local folklore, pirates supplanted the Sawani tribe... in the early 1800s the island was named Captiva by a pirate captain Jose Gasparillo... he was notorious for holding women prisoners for ransom... with Captiva as their headquarters, the buccaneers and privateers became gun runners and blockade runners and thrived until the end of the Civil War... in the 1870s, Captiva was abandoned and uninhabited... a malaria epidemic decimated the island and its people.

In 1888, an Austrian by the name of Axel Stordahl was on a German freighter headed for New Orleans... the ship wrecked off the coast of Louisiana in the Gulf of Mexico and he washed up on the shores of Captiva... history tells us that Stordahl "survived for several weeks on what the unoccupied island had to offer, built a makeshift raft and got himself to the mainland and New Orleans"... in 1890 Stordahl became a naturalized US citizen and was allowed to homestead on Captiva... he was its only inhabitant for 10 years... beginning in 1900 Stordahl began to develop the island and changed its name to South Island... he felt a name change would be a good public relations ploy... on the mainland Captiva was known as a deadly place for malaria.

South Island is an isolated area located in the middle of Little Lake, about 75 miles southwest of New Orleans... Just a short ferry ride from Leesville, the closest mainland town on Highway 1, which is the main road northward... Stordahl wanted South Island to be a special community with planned townships and restricted development... no large factories or plants are permitted... he set in place strictly-enforced building codes... the towns today still look pretty much like they did in Stordahl's time... South Island is highly restricted when it comes architecture... the housing codes are severe in nature... architecture styles are from the early 1920s... development is nil... there is a feeling that time has stood still since then... and it has.

The Island, as it is called by its inhabitants, is a special place with blue waters filled with sailboats and wonderful pristine white beaches to frolic on to your heart's content... you can play in the sand, ride a bike, devour ice cream, indulge in delicious seafood and all at the same time enjoy the lovely ladies in their itsy bitsy teenie weenie yellow polka-dot bikinis... or perhaps go to a ballgame, sing the national anthem, buy you some peanuts or Crackerjacks, a coke and a hot dog, sing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game"... then repeat every Sunday afternoon... life is good on the Island.

Life travels at a different pace on South Island... no cars are permitted... just bicycles to get around... in town all your needs are close by and within walking distance... the Island also has a highly-efficient public train system that runs between the 12 towns... the trains are quite busy every Sunday as the fans and teams travel to and from the games.

Stordahl himself planned each one of the towns... small cottages that were affordable, quite comfortable and durable, that needed little upkeep... Stordahl designed his "hurricane" house... a block house that could withstand a strong hurricane... he wanted South Island to be a picturesque retirement destination... and it began to flourish in the early part of the 1920s... Stordahl died in his 80s a very rich man in 1942.