Quednau-Hindman House 

Fritz Quednau moved to Punta Gorda from Germany in the late 1800s and opened a cigar factory on Marion Avenue – the town’s first. He and his wife had three sons, one of whom, Fred, was born in 1892 in a modest cottage at 220 Goldstein Street. When young Fred was four years old, his father died, and his mother had to go out and work to feed her family. Among those she worked for was Mrs. Isaac Trabue, the founder of Punta Gorda.

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Young Fred and his brothers left school at an early age to work on the run boats, which carried goods as far south as the Smallwood Trading Post. At 17, Captain Fred Quednau was the youngest captain to sail the waters around Charlotte Harbor. After a long courtship, he married Belle McBean (he and Belle were the second couple to be married in the new Charlotte County). Belle often joined Fred on his sailing trips, along with their daughter Henrietta “Tosie”.

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After Fred gave up his sailing, he ran a restaurant on Marion Avenue and later became Sheriff of Charlotte County. Tosie grew up here, and frequently played in the halls of the old Punta Gorda Hotel. She married Jack Hindman, with whom she had two children. Tosie Quednau Hindman was Supervisor of Elections for over twenty years and well-known and respected in Punta Gorda. She died in 2009 in the house on Goldstein Street where her father, Fred, was born.  The house is a true Cracker house with one huge middle room and smaller rooms off to the side.

 

The Quednau-Hindman house was moved from its original site on Goldstein Street to History Park on September 17, 2011. The moving contractors, Flint & Doyle, moved the house at a cost of $150,000. Funds for the move were raised by donors buying feet, yards or inches along the move’s route: $100 per yard, $50 per foot and $25 per inch.