THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (27th in a series)

In mid-June, 1927, the Sarasota City Council passed an ordinance “prohibiting the showing of moving pictures, plays, vaudeville-acts or other amusements on Sundays”: I suppose that ordinance affected visits to the circus winter quarters, Sarasota’s number one tourist attraction. I wonder whose job it was to police this illegality and how much he was paid to do it.

Also in 1927, John Ringling hired John H. Phillips to design the Ringling Museum of Art to house his vast collection of paintings collected during tours of Europe. (Phillips was the architect who designed the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art). Thousand year old marble columns were imported from Greece and wall foundations from Italy to be used in its construction.

In March, the Sarasota-Palmbee Highway, the first cross-state highway south of Tampa, was opened to traffic. It passed through the towns of Arcadia and Okeechobee on its way to the east coast. It is presently known as State Route 70.

The city fathers purchased a 290 acre tract of land from the trustees of the Palmer estate and hired Donald J. Ross to design an 18-hole golf course. In February, 1928 the golf course was opened to the public. In an exhibition game, a foursome composed of Bobby Jones and Louis Landcaster defeated Watts Gun and Jim Senter. Jones shot a 73 and was given a new Pierce Arrow automobile. Fifteen hundred golfers were in attendance. Although the course was named after Jones to “give it prestige”, some thought it should have been named after Sir John Hamilton Gillespie, Sarasota’s first golfer. Gillespie died of a heart attack while walking on a course of his own design four years earlier.

Sarasota's Property values dropped to “normal” levels in 1928. The future looked OK, and Sarasota’s first radio station, owned by the Chamber of Commerce with call letters WJBB, went on the air. It sent citrus baskets to the furthest listener of the day. Hawaii and Saskatchewan listeners were recipients. The Nye Odorless Crematory Co. of Macon, Georgia built and put into operation an incinerator to consume Sarasota’s garbage and trash. Whew!

The stock market crashed in October 1929.

Building permits that had totaled $4.5 million in 1925 dropped to $83,596 in 1929. The depression had begun; the number of winter visitors dropped to a very few; citrus rotted on the trees, and mullet brought less than one cent per pound.

John Ringling’s Sarasota bank closed; he ran out of money and credit; Mabel Ringling died at the age of 54. John was a broken man.

(To Be Continued)..

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