Punta Rassa is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Lee County, Florida, United States. The population was 1,620 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cape Coral-Fort Myers, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Geography Punta Rassa is located in southwestern Lee County at (26.5104, -81.9988), at the west end of a peninsula bordered to the north by the Caloosahatchee River, to the west by San Carlos Bay, and to the south by the Gulf of Mexico. The community sits at the east end of the Sanibel Causeway, which crosses San Carlos Bay to Sanibel Island. McGregor Boulevard (County Road 867) forms the southern edge of the community; the highway leads northeast to Fort Myers, the Lee county seat. Punta Rassa is bordered to the east by the unincorporated community of Iona. According to the United States Census Bureau, the Punta Rassa CDP has a total area of , of which are land and , or 46.55%, are water. History The location was named Punta Rasca (Spanish for "smooth or flat point" and later corrupted to "Punta Rassa") by the Spanish Conquistadors in the mid-16th century, who unloaded cattle in the area. By the middle of the 18th century fishermen from Cuba had established permanent fishing stations, called ranchos, along the southwest Florida coast from Tampa Bay to San Carlos Bay. The Spanish Cubans would stay in Florida from September until March drying and salting fish caught along the coast to supply Havana. Indians living in the area, possibly Calusa at first, and later Seminole, worked seasonally at the ranchos, staying on in the area during the off-season. Dr. Benjamin Strobel visited a rancho at Punta Rassa in 1833, where he found ten or so wood-framed houses. "Ponte Rasa" was named as a "rancho" in an 1835 letter from William Buner (presumably William Bunce) to Wiley Thompson. Seminole Wars Between 1835 and 1842, and again between 1855 and 1858, Punta Rassa was in the theater of war during the Seminole Wars. As a result, Fort Dulany (also spelled "Dulaney", "Delany" and "Delaney") was built there in 1837 as an army supply depot, with a hospital. The fort was abandoned the next year, and then re-occupied in 1841, when it was used to hold Seminole prisoners before they were sent west to the Indian Territory. A hurricane destroyed Fort Dulany in October 1841. Army operations were moved up the