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Take a trip down memory lane in Sarasota, Florida. Take a look at the images and stories around Main Street in downtown.
Sarasota Main Street 1887
Main Street dead-ended at the Sarasota House, the first hotel in the Sarasota Bay region. Built a year earlier, it remained a hotel until razed in 1924 for a bank building. The two indentical buildings at the end of the street was nearest present day Five Points. Adding a modern touch to downtown Sarasota was a newly built wooden sidewalk.
Gulf Stream Avenue and Main Street 1886
The photo below reveals the fact that the Sarasota Bay area was mainly a fishing village in the nineteenth century. The fishing industry actually dissipated after the boom of 1886-1887, for steamer skippers never liked the trip from Tampa out into the open Gulf down to Sarasota.
The Town Dock 1888
At the foot of Lower Main Street in 1888 featured the Vincent Brothers restaurant (left) for those townfolks and guests of the newly-built De Soto Hotel (right) who loved fried oysters. But business wasn’t too good this year, for the “boom” of the 1886-87 had just ended. The Sarasota House (top right) was nearly deserted.
Looking Towards Five Points 1898
The photo below was taken from Palm avenue and Main Street looking towards Five Points which for many years had a watering trough for horeses and cattle that roamed outside their nearby pastures. The water from an artesian well drilled in the in the intersection of Five Points; its purpose was to provide water for the new De Soto Hotel.
Without a Railroad 1899
The area’s only commercial contact with the outside world was the pier at the foot of Main Street. It was the first structure built by the Florida Mortgage and Investment Co., the Scot syndicate. Harry Higel, one of the area’s most dynamic leaders at the turn of the century, bought the wharf and adjoining land in the 1890s for $1,500.
The Bucolic Scene 1900
Lower Main Street in 1900 belies the boom that was beginning in downtown Sarasota at the time. Most talked about event was the installation of the first telephone line in November 1899. Two phones were put in – one at the post office at Main and Pineappl, the other at Harry L. Higel’s office down on the pier. The first call came from a real estate salesman in Manatee for the publisher of the Sarasota Times, extending congratulations. During this time George Blackburn built his new hardware store (left) at Main and Palm; Coarsey, Turner & Co. opened a general merchandise store at Main and Pineapple; H.B. Harris announced he had just opened up a barber shop, and real estate advertising stepped up its offer of 40-acre tracts on the outskirts at $3 an acre, and downtown bayfront lots at $200 – cash!
Home of the Sarasota Times 1899
Opened by Cornelius Wilson and his wife (in doorway) on Main Street between Palm Avenue and Five Points. Wilson has been publishing the Manatee County Advocate but felt the Sarasota area was about to take off again and wated to ride up with it. He was right, partly because there was no place for Sarasota to go but up. Not more than a dozen families lived in the “town plat” area in 1899, and the areas, hovered around 300. Wilson never missed an issue of his tabloid, and when he died in 1910 his wife continued publishing until 1923, when she sold out to T. J. Campbell and J.H. Lord.
Big Business in 1902
Big business was handled at the general store of Highsmith, Turner & Prime on lower Main Street. Selling everything from diapers to caskets, Prime reported doing “a mighty good business but very little of it for cash.” He recalled one year selling $100,000 worth of good and taking in only $1,000 in money, the principal mediums of exchange being alligator hides, furs, sweet potatoes, chickens, and other produce. The partners then would convert this to cash by shipping all the stuff to market by boat.
Five Point Landmark Sells for $3,000 in 1903
Five Points landmark for 38 years was the Sarasota House, built at Main and Central in 1886 as a rooming house by the Scot land company. Last owner of the hotel was J. H. Lord, who bought it for $3,000 in 1903. The previous owner paid $500 for it three years earlier. Lord kept the Sarasota house until 1924, when he tore it down for the site of a bank, the First Bank & Trust Co., now the Palmer National Bank & Trust Co.
A Chorus of “Ayes” 1905
A chorus of “Ayes” echoed out of Harry Higel’s wharf office one night in October 1902, signalling “incorporating the village into a town and fighting for improvements we need so badly.” The 1903 Legislature validated the incorporation, and Sarasota began its official history, starting with the election of Col. J. Hamilton Gillespie as its mayor. Sarasota even began to look organized, what with stores and houses filling both sides of Main Street from the Five Points to the pier. The 1905 photo below shows one of the town’s first purchases – a street lamp haning over the fountain at Five Points. It was one of the three kerosene lamps, bought for $3.75 each; the other hung at the foot of Main and at the railroad depot. At left is the Bank of Sarasota, adjacent to Jim Flood’s barber shop that soon would become the Badger Pharmacy. The town’s first library in 1907 was on the second floor of this building.
Photo below shows lower Main street, viewed from the pier looking forward toward Five Points, taken the same year. Sarasota House is seen at end of street.
Fishing in Dresses 1904
Back from an afternoon of fishing with their catch in 1904 are Dr. F. W. Schultz, his wife, and a friend. They are passing through Five Points. Under construction in the background is the present Badger Pharmacy building. The house in the rear belings to J. B. Turner, who ran a general merchandize store. The new Methodist church is at left.
The Badger Drug Store 1905
A famous landmark to Sarasotans for more than 50 years, the Badger Drug Store had its beginning in 1905 at Five Points. It was named by Dr. F. W. Schultz for his hometown state, the Badger state of Wisconsin.
Faith in 1906
Methodists are often recognized as having the first orgnanized church in the Sarasota Bay region. In the early days services were held in a frame building at Five Points with curcuit-riding preachers like Revs. George Glazier and E. F. Bates coming down from Manatee. By 1906 the congregation had progressed to buying this building, and adding a belfry and steeple, at Main and Pineapple. The church and site were sold to J. H. Lord five years later – for $1,600 – and the Methodists erected a new structure on Pineapple. The Methodists always have had a “downtown” church. Hamming it up for the photographer, four telephone workmen pose atop a pole while stringing line.
Fire on Main & Palm 1908
Without a fire department, the town of Sarasota threatened to go up in smoke in 1908. The Bay View Hotel on the northwest corner of Main and Palm, only two years old, caught fire, and in minutes the 16 room wooden structure crumbled, shooting sparks across the rooftops of other frame buildings. Without a volunteer fire department, not even a community hose, the townspeople watched and prayed. Nothing else caught fire.
Business on Main Street 1909
Business Block on lower Main Street in 1909 housed Blackburn’s hardware store, a tailor shop, the office of dentist S.S. Curry, and J.B Chapline’s real estate business. It is now the First Federal parking lot.
Hook & Ladder 1911
Horsing around with the town’s new hook and ladder wagon in 1911. The photo was taken in front of J.W. Harvey’s blacksmith shop on Main between Lemon & Orange.
Parade at Five Points 1912
Awaiting a prade in 1912, the menfold mingled in the street and on the pier while the women clustered about the Belle Haven Inn at right. The view is looking toward Five Points up lower Main Street from the pier. Sarasota still was two years away from being designated a city, but great progress had been made since its incorporation as a town in 1903. Sidewalks and curbs were in, telephone lines up, water and sewer lines were being installed, and a seawall along Gulf Stream Avenue was ordered poured. The plentiful water oaks cooled the street but no one ventured out without a hat or parasol.
A Major Hotel
This hotel and improvement to the downtown in 1912 was construction of the Watrous Hotel on the northwest corner of Main and Palm. It later became the Colonial Hotel, and finally was torn down.
Tallest Fireproof Building in Sarasota Burns to the Ground 1912
A full three stories high, the Tonnelier Building in 1912 became the town’s tallest and most modern building. Occupants were the Palms Hotel, with 38 rooms, and the Palms Theater, the first indoor theater in the area. Considered fireproof because of its brick veneer walls, the Tonnelier building failed to prove it when the city suffered its worst fire in 1915. An old wooden structure at Main and Pineapple, used as a town meeting hall and church, caught fire and flames leaped down the north side of lower Main Street. A shoe repair shop went up, then a 5 & 10 store, then a fruit stand; flames hesitated only briefly against the walls of the Tonnelier before consuming all three stories. Adjoining the Tonnelier was the Sarasota Times building. Its presses were too big to be moved, but the fire never got to them. Volunteers contained it, without the help of the city’s new fire engine; it was on order but not yet delivered. Damage was estimated at $100,000.
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