THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (26th in a series)

Occupational licenses in Sarasota rose from 139 in 1923 to 1,057 in 1925. The “Members of Commerce” list rose from 125 to 2,430. The A.S. Skinner Co. real estate organization grew from 23 to 66 salesmen in 18 months. It was said that they all wore knickers and were called the ’Knickerbocker Men’. They claimed $40 million in sales in 1925.

Sarasota’s first public hospital opened on the corner of 3rd Street and Goodrich. It had a patient capacity of six. In 1926, A.B. Edwards built the finest theater on the west coast of Florida at a cost of $350,000. Fifteen hundred people were in attendance on opening night, April 19, 1925. The silent black and white movie was “Skinner’s Dress Suit”, a comedy starring Hedda Hopper, Reginald Denny and Laura LaPlante.

Ringling had spent $650,000 on the Ritz Carlton project when it became apparent that buyers for property at these inflated prices were rapidly disappearing; the massive hurricane of September 17, 1926 burst Sarasota’s real estate boom. The list of millionaires dwindled down to four. The 69 square mile area that the city had been extended to in 1925 proved to be more than the economy could sustain and the council agreed, 974 to 31, to a more appropriate 17 square miles.

Although work had stopped on the Ritz Carlton, John Ringling refused to give up. He bought the magnificent El Verona Hotel, renamed it the John Ringling Hotel, and installed the circus’s seven foot giant as the doorman, complete with a gold colored uniform and brass buttons.

To help Sarasota weather the storm, Ringling announced on March 23, 1927 that he would move the winter quarters of the circus from Bridgeport, Connecticut to Sarasota. This required spending at least $500,000 just for the buildings. During the first week in November, 100 railroad cars arrived in Sarasota with elephants, lions, gorillas (Gargantua and Mlle. M’Toto) and more. Dozens of performers and their families came too. The circus grounds were opened to the public on Christmas Day 1927. This attraction helped make Sarasota a tourist destination.

AN ASIDE

One day in October 1924, an unkempt couple moved into a shanty on Sarasota’s coastal area. A few days later the man showed a neighbor some gold coins and hinted he had found a buried treasure chest. The next day he bought a new car, some new clothes and then the couple disappeared. Who were they? Did they really find a treasure chest?

The pirate Jean Lafitte is known to have operated in the Gulf of Mexico, captured more than 100 vessels of all nations, and even buried Napoleon’s treasure somewhere along the gulf coast.

In 1926, a syndicate spent thousands of dollars searching for Lafitte’s buried treasure, to no avail.

(To Be Continued)..

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THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (25th in a series)

In previous episodes, we revealed little about Harry Higel, one of early Sarasota’s foremost citizens. He was mayor when Sarasota was incorporated as a city in 1913. He constantly fought for progress including being first to plat Siesta Key in 1907. On January 7, 1921, he was found brutally beaten and left to die in the middle of Beach Road. A reward of $1,000 was offered for evidence to convict. Although a suspect was identified, the evidence was circumstantial and the reward was never claimed.

On May 1, 1925, an eight page newspaper size advertisement entitled “Sarasota on the Gulf” was published and widely distributed. It stated, “Fortunes have been made overnight in Sarasota” and included articles to prove it. “Jim Bishop, a fisherman, sold a lot on Longboat Key for $30,000 and retired.” “Senator Park Trammell made a profit of over $10,000 on an initial investment of $750. Widows who had been land poor bought player pianos. Dozens of Similar articles appeared.

During the month of October 1925 real estate sales in Sarasota exceeded 11 million dollars.

Starting in 1923, John Ringling employed three huge dredges to make solid land of mangrove islands creating St. Armand’s, Lido and the southern end of Longboat Key. Sewer and water lines were installed, canals were dredged and roads were built. A causeway that cost $750,000 was built to connect the area with the mainland. The day that the causeway opened, February 7, 1026, Ringling Estates reported real estate sales exceeding one million dollars.

In 1925, Dr. Fred Albee purchased 2,916 acres south of Sarasota from the Palmer Real Estate Sales Group. He employed John Nolan, a respected city planner to design a city to be called Venice, a model city that would attract the elite.

The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (BLE) built the Cooperative National Bank of Cleveland, Ohio to increase pensions for their members. Profits grew by a million dollars per month and they sought property in Florida for an investment.

Based upon the fact that the Seaboard Airline Railway accessed the area, and that it fronted on the Gulf of Mexico, the BLE decided to buy Dr. Albee’s holdings in 1925. They retained John Nolan and planned to build Venice, the ‘Queen of the Gulf’ in a period of three years. Retirees would buy farms complete with a house built and crops planted.

The BLE spent $500,000 per month developing the property. There were sidewalks, gutters, storm sewers, six miles of graded streets, a new train station and an operating water plant. There was a 40 acre demonstration farm, a 160 acre dairy farm, 188 residences, 141 apartment units and 83 stores.

In the summer of 1927 a BLE audit committee discovered that the project had lost $3.4 million by June 30 and projected that if the remaining property were sold at the same price-to-expense ratio, more losses would be incurred. Four top officers of the BLE were removed and it was voted to get out of Venice as quickly as possible.

(To Be Continued)..

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THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (24th in a series)

In the last issue of “Settling” it was written that as a result of WWI Sarasota had entered into a period of prosperity; It had not experienced anything like this before. The city purchased and improved the electric plant of the Sarasota Ice and Electric Co. Main Street was lighted at night, appliance stores opened and the citizens bought electrical appliances.

A 279-acre bay front parcel of a land that Bertha Palmer had purchased in 1915 was sold in 1921 for $120,000, resold to a Lakeland group of investors for $279,000, and sold again one month later to a Tampa corporation for $450,000. A 63 acre parcel, about 1/4 of that, was subsequently sold for $365,000. This parcel, Sea Gate, was purchased by Powell Crosley in 1929 for $35,000.

Real Estate offices opened throughout downtown. The A.S. Skinner Co., a real estate sales organization, had a sales force of 66 employees. Schools, churches, banks, restaurants and theaters were being built. In 1925, real estate sales in the city of Sarasota topped 11 million dollars.

The city council decided that what Sarasota lacked was a really first class hotel for “big-city” investors to stay in. The council wooed Andrew McAnsh, a Scotsman who grew up in Chicago where he became involved in politics, prospered in business and built many large apartments. He arrived in Sarasota in 1922 and organized the Mira Mar Corporation for the purpose of developing properties.

The city agreed that if Mr. McAnsh would build a first class hotel, an apartment building and an auditorium it would provide free water and electricity and not levy taxes on the properties for a period of ten years. Of course he accepted!

McAnsh started work on the Mira Mar Apartments on October 6, 1922 and the apartments were ready for occupancy by January 1, 1923. This resulted in McAnsh being called the 60-day wonder. Returning from a business trip to Chicago, his train was met at Rubonia with a brass band parade that escorted him to Sarasota. The Mira Mar Hotel and the Mira Mar Auditorium were started in July 1923 and both were completed within six months.

In November 1925 a new charter extending city limits to include 69 square miles was signed by the Governor. The original township of Sarasota had an area of 2 square miles.

The John Ringling causeway, a wood planked bridge, was built in 1925-26 to provide access to his real estate properties that included St. Armand’s, Bird, Lido and Longboat Keys. On the day that the causeway was formally opened, February 7, 1926, a band from Czecho-Slovakia played two concerts on St. Armand’s Key. Sales of properties at their Ringling estates that day were said to exceed one million dollars.

Some events of significance apart from the real estate boom that occurred during this period are:

• 
  · September 27, 1923 had been declared Public Works Day during which a baseball diamond was prepared at Payne Park for the New York Giants. The Giants began spring training there in 1924.


• · Sarasota Hospital moved from temporary quarters at Third and Goodrich to Hawthorne and the Tamiami Trail.


• · Emma Booker, an African American began teaching blacks in 1918 in rooms rented in the Knights of Pythias Hall.

The children used orange crates for desks and books discarded from white schools. She did not have a degree to teach but spent every summer for 20 years going to school. She finished high school and earned a B.S. degree before she died in 1939.

(To Be Continued)..

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SETTLING SARASOTA (23rd in a series)

With Mrs. Potter Palmer’s purchase of 80,000 acres of property in and around Sarasota, Sarasota became the focus for winter visitors and persons of wealth. The town population was 840 and increasing rapidly.

The Sarasota-Venice Co. was set up by the Palmers to develop and sell property. The Bee Ridge area was touted as excellent for farming vegetables and was the first sold in 1911. Mrs. Palmer established Meadow Sweet Pastures, a model cattle breeding ranch in the Myakka Lake region. She bought prize bulls and started a program of cattle dipping to eliminate ticks and the diseases they caused. Prior to that, ranchers thought that “dipping” would kill the cows.

A 30-year franchise to produce electricity had been granted in 1909, but no street lights had been placed until two puny ones, one at Five Points and the other at the intersection of Main Street and Palm Avenue were installed in 1911. Lights were turned on from dusk to midnight every night except on moonlit nights. There was no power available during the day until the company finally agreed to provide ‘breakfast light,’ from 4:00 until 6:00 a.m. – that’s all! Of course, service improved later.

On Saturday night November 12, 1910, movies were shown in a tent set up at the foot of Main Street. It was an event heralded for weeks before the show. The tent was packed and people waited outside for the next performance. A gramophone provided sound.

The year 1911 was a period of great activity. The Citizens Bank of Sarasota was organized and opened for business. Mr. and Mrs. Honore, Mrs. Palmer’s uncle and aunt, built a large home, the Acacias on Yellow Bluffs. The Sarasota Yacht Club was revived.

A $20,000 bond issue for building a water works and a sewage system was approved, 57 votes for to 35 against.

A contract was let to drill an artesian well and lay water and sewer lines. The sewer discharge line was extended 400 feet into the bay. Conditions were improving.

Unfortunately, however, cows, pigs, and goats roamed wherever they pleased. They drank from the fountain at Five Points, wallowed in mud puddles and slept under houses. Cowpokes came into town on Saturday night, got ‘likkered-up,’ raced their ponies on Main Street and shot at unwary dogs.

Fortunately, Hamden S. Smith was elected mayor and provided the impetus for passage of Ordinance #51 that penalized the owners of animals grazing within town limits. The cattlemen threatened but the ordinance passed and the cattlemen’s domination was over.

Sarasota was growing.

(Continued)..

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SETTLING SARASOTA (22nd in a series)

Sarasota’s bad times continued through 1909 as evidenced by a published booklet advertising 82 bargain Sarasota properties for sale. One example read: 8 1/2 acres, 6-room house, large barn, tools, one-half mile from town, $1,500.

On January 23, 1910, Mrs. Potter Palmer was in her Lake Michigan home reading the Chicago Sunday Tribune. The wind was howling, it was snowing, and sleet was forming on the windows. She saw an ad in the classified section that told of beautiful Sarasota, a modern city on the Bay where there were still tracts of the “richest land in the world” that could be purchased for a trifle. Details could be obtained by contacting J. H. Lord of the real estate office of Lord and Edwards with offices in the Marquette Building (Chicago). Mrs. Palmer (Bertha) was interested.

On Monday, Mrs. Palmer’s father (H.H.Honore) visited Mr. Lord, a cracker-jack salesman. H. H. was captivated by Mr. Lord and made an appointment for him to meet Mrs. Palmer the next day.

When Lord left the mansion, he had Mrs. Palmer’s assurance that she would be in Sarasota by February 10. When he got back to his office he telegraphed A.B Edwards, “Mrs. Potter Palmer coming to Sarasota. Prepare a place for her plus a party of four. She will buy heavily if interested.”

Mrs. Potter Palmer, the Chicago socialite; a woman with homes in London and Paris was coming to Sarasota!

The immediate problem was to secure suitable accommodations for the party of five. Edwards called Dr. Jack Halton and arranged to convert his newly built sanitarium into a residence for the Palmers. The always spotless building was scrubbed to perfection and suitable furniture was purchased.

On February 10, 1910, Mrs. Palmer, her two sons, her father, and her brother arrived by train in a private car. Edwards knew not what to expect. She was friendly, congenial, and even thought that the shabby town was “quaint..”

He told her that he was born in Sarasota, that he wandered the woods barefoot as a child and told how the early settlers lived. Her interest in Sarasota snowballed. Edwards engaged Captain William Hodges’ launch and took Mrs. Palmer and her father for a sightseeing trip on Sarasota Bay. They docked at a rickety slip on Lawrence Jones’ property and marched through the weeds to look at an oak tree and cabbage palm that had grown up together. She was captivated by everything she saw and decided to buy the 13-acre property for her winter home.

Jones held out for $11,000 and that is what Mrs. Palmer paid for it. She bought 200 adjoining acres and eventually built “The Oaks” on the property.

J. H. Lord came from Chicago a few days after the Palmer party arrived, and he and Edwards took them on sight-seeing trips throughout the area. Some trips were by horse and buggy. Some were by car that Lord rented from a friend. An intended four-day stay grew into eleven. Eventually Mrs. Palmer bought more than 80,000* acres in the Sarasota region.

The Chicago Sunday Tribune carried a full-page layout of Sarasota with pictures and text. Sarasota land values multiplied.

* 80,000 acres = 125 square miles

(Continued)..

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Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

SETTLING SARASOTA (21st in a series)

In the fall of 1911, John Ringling spent a few days in the Sarasota area during which he visited with Ralph Caples who had just purchased a large home with acreage from C. H. Thompson. Early in 1912, John and his wife Mable returned to Sarasota in their private railroad car ‘JOMAR’. (Jo for John, Ma for Mable, and R for Ringling). It was during Sarasota’s coldest winter. John remarked that it was warmer up north; Caples told him that it wouldn’t last more than a few days and that land prices were going up.

John: “Tell you what Ralph, if you sell me the Thompson place cheap, just like it stands, I’ll buy it tonight.”

Caples: “Mr. Ringling, you’ve bought yourself a home.”

The transaction was recorded at the county seat in Bradenton on January 31, 1912. John and Mable moved into the Thompson house, and Charles Ringling, his wife Edith and their two children came down to visit and bought property adjacent to John’s.

Everyone knew the name Ringling and when it was learned that John and Charles had purchased property on Shell Beach, Sarasota rejoiced! Ringlings and circus were synonymous. It brought visions of elephants, clowns, acrobats and more.

One afternoon John and Owen Burns went to uninhibited St. Armand’s Key in Burns’ boat. John remarked that a causeway to the mainland would make the key the best residential section in the state. Through Burns, John bought St. Armand’s Key, acreage on the south end of Longboat Key, and Bird Key.

During the 1913-14 winter, the United States began to go into an economical tailspin when – boom- a Serb assassinated Archduke Francis of Austria and his wife. Russian troops invaded Germany, German troops invaded France. World War I had started. Orders for munitions, clothing, food and more poured into the United States. All of the country prospered including Sarasota.

In the fall of 1919 thousands of “tin-can” tourists invaded Florida. The Belle Haven Inn which had been purchased by C. T. Whittle from Ralph Caples for $35,000 in 1914 was rumored to have been sold to an anonymous buyer for $500,000.

(To be continued)..

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SETTLING SARASOTA (20th in a series)

This column begins with a story of an "accident" that changed a man’s life. Leonard Reid, an African-American, sailed aboard a fishing boat out of Savanna bound for Cuba. The boat stopped in Sarasota on New Year’ Eve 1900 to resupply. Reid found a party underway ashore and when it ended he returned to the dock to find that his ride had departed. A fisherman introduced the penniless Reid to "Colonel" Hamilton Gillespie who hired him on the spot. Reid became a lifelong member of the Gillespie household, and years later became a founding member of the Payne Chapel AME Church.

In 1907, Sarasota’s four elected aldermen legislated 26 rules and procedures regarding the conduct of all citizens. Persons could be imprisoned for profanity, blocking the sidewalk, or driving a wagon over a bridge faster than a walk. T.F. Blair was elected Marshall and expected to enforce these ordinances. No calaboose existed!

At the third regularly scheduled meeting of the council, Harry Higel and George Blackburn were appointed to get plans and estimates, Mayor Gillespie advanced $200 for construction and he selected the site. W.F. Rigby bid $105 to build it.

Sarasota’s spell of prosperity began to falter in 1905 along with the nation-wide depression of 1907. Also in 1907, the state legislature gave the town the right to issue bonds. Sarasota’s first bond election was held on December 1, 1908 and a $25,000 issue for street paving was approved 46 to 16. This was no small accomplishment as cattlemen and fishermen had "ruled the roost" until now. A $5,000 sewer bond was defeated 23 to 26, however.

All the bonds were sold by the end of February 1909 and a 20-foot pavement was laid on Main Street from Gulf Stream to Orange Avenues, a 16-foot to Osprey Avenue and a 10-foot pavement to the Corporate Line.

Also in 1908 newlyweds Marie and William Selby honeymooned at the Belle Haven Hotel. In addition to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens, their philanthropic contributions to Sarasota are many.

In 1909 Badger’s Pharmacy and Jewelry store was the gathering place for Sarasotans to discuss politics and exchange gossip.

Harry Higel, an outstanding progressive, organized Sarasota’s first yacht club in 1907. The clubhouse was built on the north end of Siesta Key, formerly known as Sarasota Key. The club had its grand opening early in November with a shore dinner consisting of clam chowder and other seafood specialties. There were eleven charter members, most of whom didn’t even own a rowboat.

On Thursday, November 5, fire broke out in the Bay View Hotel on the corner of Main and Palm. Everyone rushed to the scene. There was no volunteer fire department, no hose, and no central water supply. The building burned to the ground.

Miraculously, the flames did not spread to other buildings.

(To be continued)..

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SETTLING SARASOTA (19th in a series)

It was late fall in 1903 and better things were happening in the Town of Sarasota. The U.S. dredge Suwannee completed a channel from Sarasota Bay to Vince at a cost to the federal government of $50,000. Freight boats began scheduled trips helping the economy.

More families moved into Sarasota and the two-room school on 8th Street became over crowded. Parents appealed to the Manatee County school board to take prompt action. (Sarasota was still in Manatee County.) The estimated cost of the new building was $3,500 and the school board offered $2,000 if Sarasota would come up with the extra $1,500 and provide the lot. The required funds were pledged in less than a week.

The two-story schoolhouse was built on Main street during the summer of 1904 and it opened on September 19th with an enrollment of 114 students. Three teachers were employed initially and a fourth was added after Christmas.

Dr. Jack Halton, Sarasota’s first physician arrived on Thanksgiving Day in 1904. He liked the town so much that he returned to Muncie, Indiana where he had his office, got his family, and was back in Sarasota right after Christmas.

After opening his office he appeared before the town council and declared that the town’s lack of sewers was a disgrace. He said that the stench from the Belle Haven Inn, the town’s deluxe hotel was so nauseating that he had been unable to finish eating a meal in the hotel’s dining room. The item became a newspaper headline and the council ordered the hotel manager to install adequate cesspools or close the place.

J. H. Lord built the town’s first sewer from the Sarasota House out into the Bay. Merchants on the north side of Main Street were allowed to tap into it for a fee.

Mayor Gillespie was a busy man at this time. He had just married Blanche McDaniel, built the town’s first 9-hole golf course on a 110-acre tract of land, and convinced the First National Bank of Manatee to open a branch in Sarasota. A two-story concrete block building was built on the southwest corner of Main and Pineapple; the bank opened in a corner room in October.

The wooden building occupied by the post office and telephone exchange that had been in that spot, was pushed out into Main street and continued operating during construction of the block building.

Gillespie convinced J. Louis Houle to set up a plant on sixth and Lemon to make the cement blocks. Houle drilled an 8-inch artesian well 490 feet deep to provide the water needed. The town purchased the well as a source of municipal water later.

The post office and telephone exchange moved into the block building.

All that activity shows what marriage can do for a guy!

"Belle Haven Inn, Sarasota, Fla." Published by the Curt Teich Company in 1914. Photo by T.F. Arnold.

(To be continued)..

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SETTLING SARASOTA (18th in a series)

The previous installment of Settling of Sarasota told of the incorporation of the Town of Sarasota on October 20,1902. John Hamilton Gillespie was elected its first mayor by the will of all 53 voters.

On February 11, 1903, Gillespie, the on-site official of the Florida Mortgage & Investment Co. (FMIC) deeded the Rosemary Cemetery Property to the town. Prior to that date, burials in that cemetery could be made only with the company’s permission. On May 22, 1903, L. H. Cunliff, the first to purchase a burial plot, was charged $15. (In 1910, seven years later, he asserted that he had been bilked, whereupon the town council allowed him to buy the adjacent lot for an additional $5.)

On February 10, 1903, W. W. Lathrop, superintendent of the Peninsular Telephone Co. proposed establishing a telephone exchange in Sarasota. In less than an hour, the councilmen accepted and granted a 30-year franchise to the company. A 50-line switchboard was installed in 1904 and located in the post office building. Carrie Abbe, the Postmistress, was in charge and she hired Mamie Woodruff as the first telephone operator. There were 48 subscribers.
On April 6, 1903, Theodore Redd was awarded a contract to grade Main Street from Five Points to the bay for $35. The town had no money so he accepted scrip (a promise to pay) to be redeemed at a later date.

The women of Sarasota demanded street lighting, sidewalks, and better roads. Hearing the shrill demands of their wives, the councilmen ordered three kerosene street lamps at $3.75 each. One was placed near the watering trough at five Points, one at the foot of Main Street, and the third at the train depot.

The councilmen ordered the property owners to bear the expense of hard surfacing Main Street with marl, but sidewalks was another thing. Sarasota had gotten along fine without them so what’s the hurry.

Starting with only seven women, they chipped in and bought lumber, had it unloaded at the Methodist Church, and started to lay the sidewalks themselves. That did it! The men took over the job and the women stood by, bossed, and snickered.

On September 10, 1903, the council passed the License Fee Ordinance and established the schedule of fees to be paid by every business or profession. Fees ranged from $1.50 to $12.50 per year. Passing an ordinance and enforcing it were two different things, especially since FMIC still owned most of the land and Gillespie was FMIC’s on-site representative.

Starting in the spring of 1903 J. H. Lord, a wealthy Maine native who had visited in Venice since 1891 foresaw Sarasota’s future and started to buy land. He bought lots on Main Street, four of the five corners on Five Points, 200 town lots and 70,000 acres up and down the coast. He paid cash for most of the property and it was a stimulus for Sarasota.

Sarasota was booming!

(To be continued)..

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THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (17th in a series)

Even before Sarasota was incorporated as a town, community spirit was strong. People helped their neighbors without being asked to do so and donated money, property and/or manpower for the common good.

This issue of “Settling” is devoted to biographies of a few persons who have contributed to the growth of early Sarasota but whose names have not been included in the narrative thus far.

JOHN BLACKBURN
John and Belinda Blackburn came to the Horse and Chase Area (now known as Nokomis) in 1881 with their 15-year-old son George. John was a farmer and cattle broker from Iowa. Jack Webb, the youngest son of the Spanish Point Webbs helped them build their first house.

John grew potatoes, sugar came and bananas and built a large sloop that carried heavy loads of hogs, chickens, fish, produce and syrup to Tampa area markets and brought back, tourists, lumber and hardware. George was elected to the Town Council in 1902.

LEWIS COLSON
Lewis Colson and his wife came to Sarasota in 1884 with Richard Paulsons’ team to survey 50,000 acres for the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company and plotted the town of Sarasota. Lewis drove the stake in the ground at Five Points to mark the center of the town.

Lewis and Irene were among the early members of Sarasota’s black community, then called Overtown. Irene was the community midwife. Lewis donated property that they had bought to the Bethlehem Baptist Church. Lewis, a lay preacher, was the first minister. The church at the corner of Central and Seventh Streets was the community center for education, cultural and recreation activities.

JOSEPH HALTON, M.D.
Joseph Halton was born in England in 1881, arrived in the United States with his parents and grew up in Ohio and Indiana. As a boy, he worked for 12 ½ cents per hour, saved $130, and enrolled in the medical school at the University of Cincinnati.

Immediately after graduation in January 1907, he came to Sarasota, a city of 1400 people. He was met at the depot by a citizen who said that his mother was bleeding to death. Dr. Halton jumped into a boat with the man, went to Siesta Key, and saved the woman’s life. that act established his reputation in Sarasota.

A year later, with the help of Sir John Gillespie, Joseph and his brother Dr. Jack Halton founded the Sanitarium at 300 North Gulfstream Avenue, Sarasota’s first hospital.

Dr. Joe made regular calls as far away as Bradenton and Venice with horse and buggy. When the call was for childbirth, he went by horseback because it was faster. He said, “I’d make a call to one house in the country and before I could get away from there, a messenger would meet me and tell me to stop somewhere else.”

During his years as a physician in Sarasota, Dr. Halton performed over 1600 operations for needy children and secured free hospitalization and nursing for them.

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THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (16th in a series)

The previous installment of the The Settling Of Sarasota told of the telephone that Harry Higel had installed in the Post office/Telephone building in 1899. Carrie Abbe, Postmistress, answered every call, "took" the message, and was expected to deliver it ASAP, regardless of the distance from the building and the weather.

It was 1900 and Sarasota was in the doldrums. Ralph Caples was on honeymoon with his wife Eileen and had just arrived in Sarasota after a 4-hour spine jarring horse and buggy trip from Bradingtown. If Sarasota was to grow, a better means of land transportation was needed. Caples first job while attending college was yard work for the Lake Erie and Western Railroad Co. With that as a background, he organized the Florida West Coast Railroad Co. with the objective of building a line from Tampa to Sarasota. Before his company could start, however, members of the governing body of the Seaboard Airline* Railroad got word of Caples’ plan and started laying track south from Turkey Creek (Plant City) to Sarasota, using parts of the Slow and Wobbly right-of-way. The official title of the railroad was the United States and West Indies Railroad and Steamship Company. It later was absorbed by the Seaboard.

With the railroad nearing Sarasota and the depot under construction at the corner of Lemon and First Streets, the economy began to improve. On October 20, 1902, upon the urging of Harry Higel, 53 voters, essentially everyone living within the township, caused the town to be incorporated.

John Gillespie was elected Mayor and Higel was elected Councilman. In their exuberance, the township erected a fountain at five points and, to their chagrin, cattle would wander over for a drink and leave remains of their presence.

On December 10th, the Council gave orders to Marshall Blair to repair a bridge across a slough at the foot of Main Street. The job was completed in three weeks; the bill was $7.99 and payment was approved only after a long argument in council. Blair later resigned his job as Marshall, saying that he could not live on starvation wages.

On March 22, 1903, the railroad reached Sarasota. The Sarasota Ice Fish and Power Co. built an electric power plant that provided electricity to nearby homes and businesses. Harry Higel and partners built the Higelhurst Hotel that had hot and cold running water and electric lights in every room. The rent was $2.50 per day. The dining room could seat 150 people and the kitchen had gas (?) for cooking.


*Before the existence of aircraft that flew commercially, the word airline was defined as the shortest distance between two locations.

(To be continued)..

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