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Have you ever wondered who named your street, when and why it’s called what it is? Perhaps it has changed over time, like Fruitville Rd. which used to be 3^rd Street and Martin Luther King Drive used to be called 27^th Street.

It’s obvious when we travel over the John Ringling Causeway Bridge to Ringling Boulevard; you probably think that this route was named for John Ringling too, but no… it was his enterprising brother Charles who gets the credit. He was busy developing downtown Sarasota, while John was otherwise involved with elephants and clowns and developing the St. Armands area.

In 1925, when city planner, John Nolen arrived with his practical solutions for laying out the streets in numerical order, he followed the curve of the bay from Mound Street up to 10^th  Street; Mound Street referred to the large Indian mound across from Selby Gardens at the bay front curve. Just in case you newcomers haven’t figured it out yet, the Tamiami Trail was the main connector years ago between Tampa and Miami.

Cross streets were deliciously decked with tropical fruit and flower names, to lure those early “snowbirds” down here to enjoy the balmy, winter breezes on Pineapple Avenue, Orange Avenue, Pomelo Street, etc. In the ‘50’s an entire neighborhood south of town, which was built in an orange grove, kept some of those trees and gave orange-flavored monikers to all of its streets; Valencia, Tangelo and Tangerine, just to name a few.

Bird Key… what else - all bird names. I love them, but who decided that? Probably the Arvida Corporation who developed the key. The “Flower Streets” and the Indian names that still haunt some of the neighborhoods, lend an historic flavor that goes back over almost a hundred years.

If you’re not living in a new, gated community around here, chances are your street was named long ago, honoring a former President or someone like our early developer, Bertha Palmer, for example. Think Palmer Boulevard, Palmer Ranch, Honore Avenue, and Potter Street in memory of her two sons. The list goes on and on and it’s a fascinating peek into Sarasota’s history.

While you are out and about discovering the many streets of our community, be on the look-out for the vintage homes that are located on many of them; click here to see them.