Located in southwest Florida, Collier County is one of the largest and wealthiest counties in the state. Larger than the state of Delaware, Collier County was created in 1923 and was named after Barron Gift Collier, a businessman born in Memphis who promoted the region's development and the completion of the Tamiami Trail in 1928 using his personal fortune from streetcar advertising. The County includes important environmental preserves such as the Everglades National Park, Big Cypress Wildlife Preserve and Ten Thousand Islands as well as urban settlements such as Naples, Marco Island, Everglades City and Immokalee (Fig. 14.1). The population of Collier County has increased from 6,500 in 1950 to over 325,000 in 2008. Development has been concentrated along the Atlantic Gulf Coast from Marco Island to Naples and northward to Vanderbilt Beach near Pelican Bay.

A centre for vegetable farming and cattle raising, Immokalee is an unincorporated community in the northeast portion of Collier County. A significant seasonal influx of migrant workers to Immokalee serves the vegetable farms and orange groves in the surrounding areas. The Immokalee region has the lowest per capita income in Collier County and over 80 per cent of its population is Hispanic. Immokalee was near the early route of soldiers from the Seminole War who pursued the Seminole tribe into the Big Cypress Forest Reserve. Settlers began occupying Immokalee in the 1870s. the vicinity of Immokalee is the planned town of Ave Maria which was established in 2006.