SETTLING SARASOTA (18th in a series)

The previous installment of Settling of Sarasota told of the incorporation of the Town of Sarasota on October 20,1902. John Hamilton Gillespie was elected its first mayor by the will of all 53 voters.

On February 11, 1903, Gillespie, the on-site official of the Florida Mortgage & Investment Co. (FMIC) deeded the Rosemary Cemetery Property to the town. Prior to that date, burials in that cemetery could be made only with the company’s permission. On May 22, 1903, L. H. Cunliff, the first to purchase a burial plot, was charged $15. (In 1910, seven years later, he asserted that he had been bilked, whereupon the town council allowed him to buy the adjacent lot for an additional $5.)

On February 10, 1903, W. W. Lathrop, superintendent of the Peninsular Telephone Co. proposed establishing a telephone exchange in Sarasota. In less than an hour, the councilmen accepted and granted a 30-year franchise to the company. A 50-line switchboard was installed in 1904 and located in the post office building. Carrie Abbe, the Postmistress, was in charge and she hired Mamie Woodruff as the first telephone operator. There were 48 subscribers.
On April 6, 1903, Theodore Redd was awarded a contract to grade Main Street from Five Points to the bay for $35. The town had no money so he accepted scrip (a promise to pay) to be redeemed at a later date.

The women of Sarasota demanded street lighting, sidewalks, and better roads. Hearing the shrill demands of their wives, the councilmen ordered three kerosene street lamps at $3.75 each. One was placed near the watering trough at five Points, one at the foot of Main Street, and the third at the train depot.

The councilmen ordered the property owners to bear the expense of hard surfacing Main Street with marl, but sidewalks was another thing. Sarasota had gotten along fine without them so what’s the hurry.

Starting with only seven women, they chipped in and bought lumber, had it unloaded at the Methodist Church, and started to lay the sidewalks themselves. That did it! The men took over the job and the women stood by, bossed, and snickered.

On September 10, 1903, the council passed the License Fee Ordinance and established the schedule of fees to be paid by every business or profession. Fees ranged from $1.50 to $12.50 per year. Passing an ordinance and enforcing it were two different things, especially since FMIC still owned most of the land and Gillespie was FMIC’s on-site representative.

Starting in the spring of 1903 J. H. Lord, a wealthy Maine native who had visited in Venice since 1891 foresaw Sarasota’s future and started to buy land. He bought lots on Main Street, four of the five corners on Five Points, 200 town lots and 70,000 acres up and down the coast. He paid cash for most of the property and it was a stimulus for Sarasota.

Sarasota was booming!

(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.

THE SETTLING OF SARASOTA (17th in a series)

Even before Sarasota was incorporated as a town, community spirit was strong. People helped their neighbors without being asked to do so and donated money, property and/or manpower for the common good.

This issue of “Settling” is devoted to biographies of a few persons who have contributed to the growth of early Sarasota but whose names have not been included in the narrative thus far.

JOHN BLACKBURN
John and Belinda Blackburn came to the Horse and Chase Area (now known as Nokomis) in 1881 with their 15-year-old son George. John was a farmer and cattle broker from Iowa. Jack Webb, the youngest son of the Spanish Point Webbs helped them build their first house.

John grew potatoes, sugar came and bananas and built a large sloop that carried heavy loads of hogs, chickens, fish, produce and syrup to Tampa area markets and brought back, tourists, lumber and hardware. George was elected to the Town Council in 1902.

LEWIS COLSON
Lewis Colson and his wife came to Sarasota in 1884 with Richard Paulsons’ team to survey 50,000 acres for the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company and plotted the town of Sarasota. Lewis drove the stake in the ground at Five Points to mark the center of the town.

Lewis and Irene were among the early members of Sarasota’s black community, then called Overtown. Irene was the community midwife. Lewis donated property that they had bought to the Bethlehem Baptist Church. Lewis, a lay preacher, was the first minister. The church at the corner of Central and Seventh Streets was the community center for education, cultural and recreation activities.

JOSEPH HALTON, M.D.
Joseph Halton was born in England in 1881, arrived in the United States with his parents and grew up in Ohio and Indiana. As a boy, he worked for 12 ½ cents per hour, saved $130, and enrolled in the medical school at the University of Cincinnati.

Immediately after graduation in January 1907, he came to Sarasota, a city of 1400 people. He was met at the depot by a citizen who said that his mother was bleeding to death. Dr. Halton jumped into a boat with the man, went to Siesta Key, and saved the woman’s life. that act established his reputation in Sarasota.

A year later, with the help of Sir John Gillespie, Joseph and his brother Dr. Jack Halton founded the Sanitarium at 300 North Gulfstream Avenue, Sarasota’s first hospital.

Dr. Joe made regular calls as far away as Bradenton and Venice with horse and buggy. When the call was for childbirth, he went by horseback because it was faster. He said, “I’d make a call to one house in the country and before I could get away from there, a messenger would meet me and tell me to stop somewhere else.”

During his years as a physician in Sarasota, Dr. Halton performed over 1600 operations for needy children and secured free hospitalization and nursing for them.

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