THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (14th in a series)

In the last installment, you read about Sarasota’s first train, the “Slow and Wobbly”. This link between Bradentown (now Bradenton) and Sarasota was Sir John Gillespie’s attempt to assure Sarasota’s survival.

After less than three years of spasmodic trips, the Slow and Wobbly was retired. Construction had stopped, the workers had gone and there was little money to spend. The engine and flat cars were left to rust. Gillespie’s problems were multiplying.

His wife Mary was a cantankerous woman who enjoyed frequent nips of scotch or bourbon or rum often resulting in, shall we say, embarrassing situations. Sir John, an ardent Episcopalian was serving as a lay reader at church services one Sunday and Mrs. Gillespie strolled in after services had begun and took a seat close to the pulpit. She opened a large red parasol and held it over her head until services ended. She then stood up, closed the parasol and said “nice going darlin” and left the building, weaving down the wooden sidewalk towards the De Soto Hotel (inset).

Some months later, in an effort to get a church in Sarasota, Gillespie invited an Episcopalian bishop to be his guest at the DeSoto Hotel. The bishop arrived accompanied by a large group of church dignitaries. While he was seated in the dining room Mrs. Gillespie entered, lurched into a waiter who spilled the entire contents of a soup tureen on the bishop’s lap. The bishop rose, said nothing, left the dining room and the DeSoto Hotel the next morning. Sarasota did not get its Episcopalian church that year.

As a result of Mary Gillespie’s shenanigans, the couple he had hired to manage the DeSoto Hotel left it in 1891 and built their own fancy hotel; the guests moved and soon the DeSoto closed.

Sir John and Mary moved to Bradentown for a short time, after which they returned to Scotland for a visit. When Gillespie returned to Sarasota a few years later he was alone.

The winter of 1894-95 was the coldest in the state’s history. Temperatures fell to 17 degrees, killing the vegetable crop and ruining the season’s citrus crop. As a result, in 1895, fishing was the only economic stimulus remaining and Sarasota was referred to as a fishing village. Fortunately the trees in the groves escaped being killed by the frost; citrus growers from farther north in Florida moved to the area and started new groves.

Until then, fish caught in the Sarasota area were gutted and salted for transportation to other areas. Beginning in 1884, the demand for salted fish declined because fresh fish shipped in ice had become available. Ice plants were being built in Tampa but economical transportation of ice and fish did not yet exist. In 1895, channels were cut in Sarasota Bay that allowed steamers to take the inland waterway from Tampa directly to the dock at Sarasota. The bill from the U.S. Swanee Dredge was $9,998.43.

Harry Lee Higel came to Sarasota in the early 1890’s and bought the dock at the end of Main Street that was built by the defunct Scottish Colony. He became the agent for the Tampa line whose steamship, “Mistletoe”, made its maiden trip on Monday, October 7, 1895, to pick up fresh fish. The scheduled stop developed into three visits per week.

On each trip the captain blew the whistle as the ship was coming down the bay and many of the town’s residents turned out to see if new tourists were aboard.

The community now had a dependable connection with the outside world. Sarasotans could sell their vegetables and fruit in Tampa and buy goods in the “big stores” there with the proceeds.

To be continued..

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Photo credit: Sarasota County Historical Resources