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)..

(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 (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)..

(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.

Picture courtesy of Wikipedia