Sarasota, Florida

Sarasota is a city in Florida, USA. It is on the west coast of Florida in the central portion of the state. The Gulf of Mexico is to the west and Sarasota Bay separates portions of this city that is composed of a mainland and its barrier islands, known as keys. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 52,715. As of 2004, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 54,349 ^*. It is the county seat for Sarasota County. There is an important distinction between the city and what is perceived as Sarasota. The majority of people living in what is understood as Sarasota live in unincorporated parts of Sarasota County. Some even live in Manatee County because Sarasota was considered to reach Bowlees Creek before Sarasota County was created in 1921 out of a portion of Manatee County. The southern boundary of Bradenton, the closest city to the north in Manatee County, is twelve miles away. So an arbitrary line separated portions of what once was identified as Sarasota before the creation of Sarasota County and the vestige of that cultural identification remains in some Manatee County street addresses to the south of the creek, which still are called Sarasota.

History

Prehistorical data from several disciplines

Fifteen thousand years ago, when humans began to occupy Florida, the shoreline of the Gulf of Mexico was one hundred miles to the west. The accompanying graphic clearly depicts the ancient shoreline in light blue. Sarasota was in a very dry, uplands habitat where hunting and gathering would have been the typical subsistence, only where water sources existed for both the prey and the hunters. Deep springs and catchment basins seem to have been nearby—such as Warm Mineral Springs—which provided sites for camps, but not close enough for settlements in Sarasota during that period. A more welcoming climate advanced southward in Florida as the Pleistocene glaciers began to melt and sea levels began rising the 350 feet necessary to provide the current shoreline.

Archeological research in Sarasota documents more than ten thousand years of seasonal occupation by native peoples. For five thousand years while the current sea level existed, harvesting the bounty of Sarasota Bay was the primary source of protein. European explorations began here in the early 1500s. The first recorded exploration of the area was a landing at Charlotte Harbor, just to the south, in 1513 by Spaniards, however, they encountered natives who insulted them—in Spanish—just before they attacked preemptively. Apparently, some of their members had enough contact previously with the Spaniards to learn the language and—not to trust them.

Early history of the area - to Bertha Palmer

Sarasota Bay, the greatest natural asset of the region, was touted to be as beautiful as the bay of Naples by Bertha Potter Palmer, the largest landholder, rancher, and developer of the area, when she established Sarasota as a fashionable location for winter retreats and tourists shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. At that time, sports fishing was a great draw and it continued to attract visitors until over-fishing depleted the amazing fish, such as giant gar and tarpon, living in the bay.

One of the earliest pioneer locations preserved in the Sarasota Bay area, Spanish Point, where Bertha Palmer made her winter residence on land originally homesteaded by the Webb family at what they called, Webb Point. She retained most of their structures and greatly expanded the settlement. The pioneer site has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places as Spanish Point and is open to the public for a fee. Tours of the compound explore the natural history and human occupation of the site through archaeology, historic preservation, and reenactment of some typical pioneer activities of a homestead family along Sarasota Bay. In 1867 Bill Whitaker took the newly arriving, extended Webb family to a bluff south of his that an Indian guide had described to Webb as a good location for a new homestead. Massive mounds indicate that the bluff had been settled frequently during the entire prehistoric human occupation of the bay area. The Webbs had to travel quite a distance for their mail and after almost twenty years, in 1884, John Webb finally petitioned for a separate postal address for Webb Point. They chose Osprey as their postal address, since federal regulations required the use of only one word for the new address. A separate town eventually grew around that postal address.

Women have played a significant role in the development of Sarasota, or at least, contrary to many communities, the history of Sarasota has documented their roles very publicly. Bertha Palmer was not so unusual here, the McClellan sisters were the developers of the subdivision, McClellan Park, that bears their name. It is one of the most significant and successful neighborhoods south of downtown. Many other examples may be found by exploring the county records at the Sarasota History Center.

1920s boom time begins with a distinctive county designation

In 1921 several new counties were carved out of portions of Manatee County, which then extended from the natural southern boundary of Tampa Bay to the southern boundary of the state and through a great portion of the interior. One of those new counties distinguished the booming Sarasota Bay area and its keys, that had been identified clearly on maps since the early 1700s—then spelled Zarazote—and extended inland. Sarasota, incorporated as a city in 1913, was designated as the seat of the new county that would bear the same name.

Although the city limits were reduced to facilitate the new boundary, residents of those areas excluded in the process, continued to identify themselves as Sarasotans and, as mentioned in the introduction, so did many residing in unincorporated and previously established areas retaining that legal address. Other communities in the area were incorporated and began to grow into distinctive towns and cities in the new county. Some communities, such as Overtown, Indian Beach, Bay Haven, Bee Ridge, and Fruitville—all but faded from the memory of most, as metropolitan areas grew beyond them. Overtown expanded to include what is now designated as the historic Rosemary District and Newtown.

Sarasota's most notable attraction is the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the state art museum for Florida designed by John H. Phillips and completed in 1929. It is located on the expansive bayside estate where Cà d'Zan, the winter home of Mable and John Ringling designed by Dwight James Baum, was built by Owen Burns in 1925. A portion of Cà d'Zan is shown in the lead photograph for this article. Owen Burns was a large land holder in Sarasota and one of its most significant developers because of his diverse skills, promotion of the community, encouragement of investments through banking, and civic concerns. Much later, a separate museum devoted to the Ringling Brothers Circus also was founded on the estate. All are open to the public for a fee and museum figures indicate that 500,000 people tour the site each year.

The Mable and John Ringling estate was developed upon property that had been part of the Shell Beach subdivision platted by Mary Louise and Charles N. Thompson in 1895. The Thompson home was the first residence on the property. Mable and John spent their winter stays in that house from 1911. Along with being a land developer, Thompson was a manager with another circus, who had interested several members of the Ringling family in Sarasota as a winter retreat as well as for investments in land.

In 1919 these holdings were consolidated into one huge circus—billed as "the greatest show on Earth". There were now only two of the original five founding brothers alive, but members of their families continued to participate in the business or serve on the board of directors. Performers and staff members began to settle in Sarasota and the legacy of the Ringling Circus would be interwoven, forever, with the community.

Sarasota was ready for the boom that began following the end of World War One. It now had people flooding into it—for jobs, for investment, and for the chic social milieu burgeoning in discovery of new destinations and lifestyles.

Shell Beach jewels on Sarasota Bay

Later, on adjacent parcels of Shell Beach where Ellen and Ralph Caples built their winter retreat, Mable and John Ringling built their compound that would soon include the museum, and Edith and Charles Ringling built a compound that included a home for their daughter, Hester Ringling Landcaster Sandford. The next large Shell Beach parcel, immediately to the north, passed between Ellen Caples, Mable and John Ringling and a few others several times without development until 1947 as the Uplands. Some other historic names associated with that parcel are, Bertha Potter Palmer, her sons Lockwood and Honore, and A. B. Edwards, whose names are featured as familiar street names. The tract abbutting that parcel was replatted in 1925 as Seagate, where Gwendolyn and Powel Crosley built their winter retreat in 1929. All of these historic homes and the museum have been listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The now-historic neighborhood of Indian Beach Sapphire Shores grew immediately to the south of the area where these grand homes were built on the bay. Sapphire Shores provided homes to the professionals and retirees who wished to be, or were, closely associated with these wealthiest residents of the community. Indian Beach, which had been a separate community at one time, even contained pioneer homes that persisted among the fashionable new homes built in the boom era of the 1920s.

Charles Ringling as developer

As well as investing in land, property development, and founding a bank, Charles Ringling participated in the civic aspects of Sarasota. He donated the land for the newly formed county to build its government offices and courthouse. Ringling Boulevard is named for Charles. That winding road led east from Tamiami Trail toward the winter circus headquarters and crosses Washington Boulevard where Charles Ringling built the Sarasota Terrace Hotel, a high-rise in the Chicago style of architecture, opposite the site he would donate for the county seat. The hotel and the courthouse are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Charles Ringling devoted a great deal of time advising others about beginning new businesses in order to help Sarasota advance.

Charles died in 1926, just after the gracious home Edith and he built, was completed. For decades Edith Ringling remained there and continued her role in the circus and her cultural activities in the community, as did Hester and her sons, who were very active in the theatrical and musical venues in Sarasota. What came to be known internationally as the Edith Ringling Estate is now the home of New College of Florida.

John Ringling in partnership with Owen Burns

John Ringling invested heavily in the barrier islands, known as keys, which separate the shallow bay from the Gulf of Mexico. He worked in partnership with Owen Burns to develop the keys through a corporation named, Ringling Isles Estates. To facilitate development of these holdings a bridge was built to the islands by his partner, Owen Burns, and eventually donated to the city for the government to maintain. They named that route, John Ringling Boulevard. Dredge and fill created even more dry land to develop. Winter residents, called snowbirds, flocked to purchase the seasonal homes marketed to the well to do.

Leading edge of the crash

Sarasota would never enjoy a full decade of the roaring twenties. Florida was the first area in the United States affected by the financial problems that eventually lead to the Great Depression. 1926 was the beginning of that collapse of speculation in Florida, much earlier than most parts of the country. John Ringling initially profited from the problems of others. After having put his partner, Owen Burns, into bankruptcy by raiding the treasury of their corporation for use on another project that was failing, he purchased the landmark, El Vernona Hotel, at a fraction of its worth from Burns, who had named it after his wife. Eventually however, John Ringling too, lost most of his fortune. Shortly after the June 1929 death of his wife, Mable, his reversal began. He purchased several other circuses with hopes of combining them with the existing circus and selling shares on the stock exchange, just before the market chrashed. He continued to invest in expensive artwork, but grand projects, such as a Ritz hotel on one of the barrier islands, were left unfinished. Plans for an art school as an adjunct to the museum were abandoned, although he lent his name to another art school being established by others in Sarasota. The board of the circus removed John Ringling and placed another director, Samuel Gumpertz, in charge of that corporation. By the time of his death in 1936, John Ringling also was close to bankruptcy. His estate was saved only because he had willed it and his art collection to the state and, that his nephew, John Ringling North, struggled for years to keep that legacy in tact.

Cultural Center of Florida

Recognized as the cultural center of the state of Florida since the early 1920s, artists of many disciplines, writers, performers, musicians, and architects have been attracted to the community in great numbers. Sarasota is the home of Florida West Coast Symphony, founded by Ruth Cotton Butler in 1949, and its famous Sarasota Music Festival which draws students, musicians, professors, and lovers of chamber music from around the world for a three-week event of international importance; Sarasota Ballet; Sarasota Opera; The Players; and numerous other musical, dance, artistic, and theatrical venues.

In 1926 A. B. Edwards built a versatile theater that could be adapted for vaudeville or as a movie house. John Ringling purchased an entire historic Italian theater, the Asolo—which he had broken down and shipped to the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art that was being built on their estate—to be rebuilt for performances of plays and opera. Later it was used for a burgeoning foreign film club that eventually expanded and built its own theater at Burns Court near downtown Sarasota. In the 1960s the Van Wezels made it possible for the city government to build a signature performing arts hall on the bay front that was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin team under the direction of his wife, Olga (Olgivanna) Lazovich Hinzenburg, who selected the distinctive, purple sunset color. Later, Stuart Barger designed and oversaw the construction of another Asolo. It is a multi-theater complex, farther east on the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art property, built around a rococo, historic Scottish theater, that was shipped overseas also. The new complex provides several other venues—traditional and experimental—as well as offices and study facilities for students of Florida State University's theater arts and film program.

The community also is renowned as the home of the Sarasota School of Architecture which developed as an adaptation to its sub-tropical climate, using newly emerging materials manufactured or implemented following World War Two. The driving force of this movement was Philip Hiss. Fellow architects in the adaptive designs were Paul Rudolph and Ralph Twitchell. From the second generation of the school that includes Jack West, Victor Lundy, Mark Hampton, James Holiday, Ralph Zimmerman and William Zimmerman—Carl Abbott, Edward J. "Tim" Seibert, and Frank Folsom Smith still practice in the community.

Rudolph's Florida houses attracted attention in the architectural community, and he started receiving commissions for larger works such as the Jewett Art Center at Wellesley College. He took over at Yale in 1958, shortly after designing the school's building, and stayed for six years until he returned to private practice.

Sarasota is home to Mote Marine Laboratory, a premier marine rescue, research, and aquarium; Marie Selby Botanical Gardens with its renowned orchid collection; G-Wiz Museum, a science museum of hands on-appeal to children of all ages; Sarasota Jungle Gardens, which carries on early tourist attraction traditions; as well as many historic sites and neighborhoods.

Colleges in Sarasota include New College of Florida, a highly acclaimed public liberal arts college which serves as the honors college for the state; Ringling School of Art and Design, a school of visual arts and design; and a satellite campus of both Eckerd College (based in St. Petersburg) and University of South Florida (based in Tampa). Several two-year colleges include Sarasota County Technical Institute and Keiser College of Sarasota.

Historic sites in Sarasota

The listing of historic sites in Sarasota is quite long for a community of fewer than fifty-five thousand residents. The official list is growing constantly as residents realize the value of preserving their built environment and explore their local history.

Although many of the oldest modest structures built in Sarasota have been lost to the wrecking ball, the concentration of the most significant luxurious historic residences built during the 1920s boom period along the northern shore of Sarasota Bay have survived. This string of homes, built on extremely large parcels of high land along the widest point of the bay, is anchored by the John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art at its center.

Many of the distinct Sarasota neighborhoods are beginning to establish historic districts ahead of pressure for redevelopment. A surprising number of eligible structures remain and encouragement to preserve is increasing.

The following list includes some of the Sarasota sites that have been registered as historic to date. A. B. Edwards Theater American National Bank Building Appleby Building Atlantic Coast Line Passenger Depot Bacheller - Brewer Model Home Estate Bacon and Tomlin, Inc. Bay Haven School Bee Ridge Women's Club Bispham - Wilson Historic District Burns Court Historic District Burns Realty Company - Karl Bickel House Caples and Ringling Estates Historic District Ellen and Ralph Caples residence John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art Mable and John Ringling residence, Cà d'Zan Hester Ringling Landcaster Sanford residence Edith and Charles Ringling residence Capt. W. F. Purdy House Casa Del Mar Central - Cocoanut Historic District Christy Payne Mansion City Waterworks Corrigan House Crisp Building DeMarcay Hotel Dr. C. B. Wilson House Dr. Joseph Halton House Dr. Walter Kennedy House Earle House Edson Keith Estate Edwards Theater El Patio Apartments El Vernona Apartments - Broadway Apartments El Vernona Hotel - John Ringling Hotel F. A. DeCanizares House Field Estate Frances-Carlton Apartments Frank and Matilda Binz House George Schueler House H. B. William House Harding Circle Historic District - on Saint Armand's Key Hilton Leech House and Amagansett Art School House at 507 Jackson Drive J. G. Whitfield Estate L. D. Reagin House Leonard Reid House Municipal Auditorium - Recreation Club Out of Door School Overtown Historic District Rigby's La Plaza Historic District Rosemary Cemetery Roth Cigar Factory S. H. Kress Building Sanderling Beach Club Sarasota County Courthouse Sarasota Herald Building Sarasota High School Sarasota Times Building Sarasota Women's Club Seagate South Side School Southwick-Harmon House Thoms House U.S. Post Office - Federal Building William J. Burns House Worth's Block

Transportation and Broadcasting

The city is home to Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport (also known by its IATA designation, SRQ) which serves both Manatee and Sarasota counties. That designation was adopted by SRQ Magazine, an informative local magazine.

The local television affiliates are WWSB, which airs ABC programming, along with a continuous local cable news operation run by Comcast, and Sarasota Herald-Tribune branded as SNN 6. WWSB is the only network with studios in Sarasota. Other network programming is offered by Fort Myers and Tampa television stations.

Contemporary Sports

Golf was introduced into the United States in Sarasota, which became a mecca for enthusiasts of the game. Bobby Jones laid out the city course which is named after him and the SaraBay course in the Whitfield area. Many courses dot the area, including the one originally laid out for the hotel John Ringling planned on the southern tip of Longboat Key.

Sarasota also is home to Ed Smith Stadium, where the Cincinnati Reds, Cincinnati's major league baseball MLB team, trains in spring for the upcoming season, and is home to the minor league Sarasota Reds.

News Items

On September 11, 2001, President George W. Bush was in Sarasota when the World Trade Center was attacked by terrorists. He was at Emma E. Booker Elementary School at the time. Sarasota was the location of the Carlie Brucia kidnapping in 2004 and the murder of Nancy Campbell-Panitz in 2000. In 1991, actor Paul Reubens was arrested for lewd conduct in an adult movie theater by county sheriffs, which ultimately led to the demise of his then-popular persona "Pee-Wee Herman". In 1974, WXLT anchor Christine Chubbuck committed suicide during a live television broadcast. Sarasota's first postmaster was murdered brutally on Siesta Key, in a case that was never solved.

Geography

Sarasota is located at (27.337273, -82.535318).

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 67.2 km² (25.9 mi²). 38.6 km² (14.9 mi²) of it is land and 28.6 km² (11.0 mi²) of it is water. The total area is 42.58% water.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 52,715 people, 23,427 households, and 12,064 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,366.9/km² (3,539.8/mi²). There were 26,898 housing units at an average density of 697.5/km² (1,806.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 76.91% White, 16.02% African American, 0.35% Native American, 1.02% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 3.74% from other races, and 1.91% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 11.92% of the population.

There were 23,427 households out of which 19.7% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 35.3% were married couples living together, 12.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.5% were non-families. 38.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 16.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.12 and the average family size was 2.81.

In the city the population was spread out with 18.4% under the age of 18, 9.2% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 22.5% from 45 to 64, and 22.0% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 41 years. For every 100 females there were 94.6 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 92.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $34,077, and the median income for a family was $40,398. Males had a median income of $26,604 versus $23,510 for females. The per capita income for the city was $23,197. About 12.4% of families and 16.7% of the population were below the poverty line, including 28.5% of those under age 18 and 7.7% of those age 65 or over.

Sister Cities

External links

Cities in Florida | Sarasota, Florida

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