to Punta Rassa had been in 1833, when P. B. Prior purchased ten cattle and some calves from Seminoles living near the Peace River in what is now Hardee County, and drove them to Punta Rassa, possibly for transport to Sanibel Island. Florida cattlemen began shipping cattle to Cuba after the end of the Third Seminole War. Shipments at first were made from Tampa, and then from Fort Ogden and Punta Gorda on the Peace River. Cattle shipments to Cuba were curtailed, but not completely stopped, by the Union blockade of Florida during the Civil War. After the war ended, shipments of cattle from the Peace River ports resumed to Cuba, to Savannah, Georgia, and to Charleston, South Carolina. Some of the cattle shipments to Cuba were made out of Punta Rassa starting in 1869, and by 1872 18,000 out of a little more than 21,000 cattle shipped from Florida to Cuba went through Punta Rassa. Most cattle drives in Florida were relatively small and short. Three or four hundred steers would be driven by three to five cowboys for or so from the open range of central Florida to Punta Rassa. A few cattle drives were larger, up to 1,500 cattle moved by ten or so cowboys. The longest drives were , from Fernandina, by the Georgia border, to Punta Rassa. Water was a problem; too much during the wet season, not enough in the dry season. In the dry season, the cowboys might have to rope alligators to pull them out of water holes so that the cattle could safely drink. The International Ocean Telegraph Company controlled the wharf that had been part of Fort Dulaney, and for many years charged 15 cents a head for cattle loaded on ships from the wharf. Francis A. Hendry later built pens and a wharf at Punta Rassa, and charged 10 cents a head for cattle shipped from his wharf. Another cattleman, Jake Summerlin, who had owned holding pens at Punta Rassa since 1868, built a hotel (the Summerlin House) in 1874. When the hotel was full, cowboys would camp out under the building. Summerlin bought Hendry's pens and wharf for $10,000 in 1878. Cattle would be loaded at the port onto ships destined for Cuba. It was one of the home bases for the "King of the Cracker Cowboys" Jake Summerlin, who by the time he was 40 was one