Naples was founded during the late 1880s by former Confederate general and
Kentucky U.S. Senator John Stuart Williams and his partner, Louisville
businessman Walter N. Haldeman, the publisher of the Louisville Courier-Journal. Throughout the 1870s and '80s,
magazine and newspaper stories telling of the area's mild climate and abundant
fish and game likened it to the sunny Italian peninsula. The name Naples caught
on when promoters described the bay as "surpassing the bay in Naples,
Italy". Major development was anticipated after the railroad reached
Naples on January
