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:

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  · 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)..

(C) Copyright, 2008 - Leland Desmon. The information on this page may not be reproduced or republished on any other webpage, website, or publication. Please LINK TO US instead.