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)..

(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.

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)..

(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.