The much-anticipated parade marking Estero's 100th birthday might not have been particularly long, but that didn't bother Marilyn Gernant much.
"It was short. It's not New York," the San Carlos Park resident said. But "it's so nice. So many organizations helping people."
The former New Yorker set up in a lawn chair with her faithful companion C.J., a 9-pound, 2-year-old Chihuahua she calls the son she never had. Decked out in a little blue knitted sweater emblazoned with "America" on his furry beige chest, C.J. watched a handful of floats roll down the street with the Estero High School Marching Band, fire trucks and an array of decorated golf carts.
Residents flocked to Estero United Methodist Church on Lord's Way on Saturday to celebrate the centennial of then-cult leader Cyrus Reed Teed, nicknamed Koresh, for his work founding the little Town of Estero. Estero was incorporated in 1904.
Teed and more than 100 of his Koreshan-cult followers migrated from New York to Chicago and then down to modern-day Estero, San Carlos Park and Fort Myers Beach in 1894. The clan wanted to build a 10 million-strong new society they called New Jerusalem, with unusual religious and social beliefs as its Koreshan Unity principles.
The community birthday party, marking a time when Estero was briefly incorporated, entertained the crowd with the 20 parade entries entailing a handful of fire engines, almost 10 thunderous Harley Davidson motorcycles and string of decked out golf carts. Some sported the "Red Hat Mamas" dressed in trademark clashing red and purple, while others showcased a tiny touch of delicious sin: bingo, poker and dreams of being sexy senior showgirls. One featured dozens of tennis balls suspended on string hanging down from the roof.
The smells of fish chowder and hot dogs mingled with the intoxicating aroma of freshly made chili as a clown lounged at a picnic table and several seniors rode past booths on three-wheel bicycles.
Estero's founders, the Koreshans, envisioned a type of Utopia when they moved here — replete with celibacy, reincarnation, communal living and breaking free of the slave-like binds of money.
In July 1904, they incorporated the community. The group grew to more than 200 members, and they amassed 110 square miles before incorporating. By doing so, they were entitled to receive county road tax money.
But landowners in neighboring Fort Myers fumed at sharing this tax money with the cult-like society — which afforded men and women equal rights during a time when women still didn't have the right to vote and saw black and white cult members working together long before the civil rights movement.
The Koreshans created the Progressive Liberal Party, seeking to dash the enemy Fort Myers Democrats in a 1906 election, but the Koreshans were no match. The state Legislature abolished the town's incorporation in 1907, and founder Teed died in 1908 from injuries he suffered during a fight with politicians and government workers in Fort Myers.
When he wasn't resurrected from the dead — as Teed had preached — members started doubting his teachings. Membership dwindled, and the cult melted into history.
Estero resident Carolyn DeVol and her husband Charles were especially thrilled with one parade entry.
"It was really nice hearing the band play," she said. "All three of our girls were in the band."