The history of Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) is a visionary one built on support for providing higher education opportunities in Southwest Florida. Area citizens began the initiative to bring a state university to this part of Florida, and their early requests were quickly supported by elected officials at the local and state levels.

The former Florida Board of Regents formally recommended in January 1991 the development of Florida’s tenth state university to be located in Southwest Florida, and, in May 1991, then Governor Lawton Chiles signed the legislation authorizing the new university. Southwest Florida’s support for a university was never more evident than during the next year, when private landowners offered more than 20 gift sites for the university campus. In early 1992, the Board of Regents selected the site offered by Ben Hill Griffin III and Alico, Inc. of 760 acres of land located just east of Interstate 75 between Alico and Corkscrew Roads.