Cape Romano is a

cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

on the

Gulf Coast The Gulf Coast of the United States, also known as the Gulf South or the South Coast, is the coastline along the Southern United States where they meet the Gulf of Mexico. The coastal states that have a shoreline on the Gulf of Mexico are Tex ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

, United States. It is on Cape Romano Island, one of a group of islands known collectively as Kice-Morgan Island. Marjory Stoneman Douglas stated that the cape was named for Bernard Romans, who charted all of the coasts of

East East is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from west and is the direction from which the Sun rises on the Earth. Etymology As in other languages, the word is formed from the fact that ea ...

and

West Florida West Florida () was a region on the northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico that underwent several boundary and sovereignty changes during its history. Great Britain established West and East Florida in 1763 out of land acquired from France and S ...

in 1774. The feature is called "Cape Roman or Punta Larga" on Romans's 1774 map. John Lee Williams, in 1837, refers to the south point of "Isle Roman" as "Cape Roman" "of the British harts, and "Puerta Longa", "Punta Longa", and "Cape Acies" "of the Spanish charts".

Kice-Morgan Island

Kice-Morgan Island is located south of

Marco Island Marco may refer to: People Given name * Marco (actor) (born 1977), South Korean model and actor Surname * Georg Marco (1863–1923), Romanian chess player of German origin * Jindřich Marco (1921–2000), Czechoslovak photographer and numismat ...

, in Collier County. It is separated from Marco Island by Caxambas Bay. John Lee Williams called the island south of Caxambas Bay "Isle Roman", and described it as long and wide. The island complex consists of narrow barrier beaches with large

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows mainly in coastal saline water, saline or brackish water. Mangroves grow in an equatorial climate, typically along coastlines and tidal rivers. They have particular adaptations to take in extra oxygen a ...

mangals (forests) behind the beaches. The Kice Island barrier beach was long in 1976, extending southsouthwest from Caxamabas Pass and Bay.

Hurricane Wilma Hurricane Wilma was the most intense tropical cyclone in the Atlantic basin and the second-most intense tropical cyclone in the Western Hemisphere, both based on barometric pressure, after Hurricane Patricia in 2015. Wilma's rapid intensifi ...

made landfall near Cape Romano in 2005, bringing a storm surge onto Kice Island. The storm opened an inlet, Morgan Pass, in the middle of the island. The southern portion of Kice Island is now called Morgan Island. In the decade following Hurricane Wilma, much of the beach on Morgan Island was eroded away. Some sand from the Kice-Morgan beaches has moved south, forming a spit at the southern end of Morgan Island. Other sand from the Kice-Morgan beaches has moved further south, onto the Cape Romano shoals south of the cape. As of 2023, the NOAA chart shows Cape Romano on Cape Romano Island, which lies behind the Morgan Island beach. The sand spit at the southern end of Morgan Island extends further south than Cape Romano Island.

Human presence

The town of

Muspa Muspa was the name of a town and a group of Calusa people. They were Indigenous peoples in southwestern Florida in the early historic period, from first contact with the Spanish until the late 18th century. Town The town of Muspa was probably ...

, a sub-chiefdom of the

Calusa The Calusa ( , Calusa: *ka(ra)luś(i)) were a Native American people of Florida's southwest coast. Calusa society developed from that of archaic peoples of the Everglades region. Previous Indigenous cultures had lived in the area for thousands o ...

, may have been located on or near Cape Romano. One Spanish map gave the name "Punta de Muspa" to the cape, and descriptions of the location of the town fit the cape, as well. John Lee Williams reported plantations in the vicinity of Caxambas Bay in 1837, which led Charlton Tebeau to suggest there may have been one at Cape Romano. A military expedition in 1838 camped on Cape Romano at the site of a former settlement, where they found fresh water. The cape was later reported to have a reliable fresh water well, which was used by residents of the area. Joe Dickman lived on Cape Romano as a hermit from the 1930s until the 1960s. Several houses were built on or near Cape Romano in the 1970s and 1980s, but beach erosion left them in open water, and hurricanes have washed them away, including the Cape Romano Dome House.

References

{{Coord, 25, 50, 43, N, 81, 40, 43, W, display=title Romano Landforms of Collier County, Florida