This Week Newsletter - April 8, 2009
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This Week
 This week, we are honoring the legacy of Owen Burns, a publicity-shy man who we as Sarasotan's have much to be grateful for in turning a small fishing village into a great city. Lee takes you on a journey how this remarkable man managed to develop land, build the Ringling Causeway, Ca'd'Zan, Burns Court, the Herald Square Building, the El Vernona Hotel (later known as John Ringling Towers), Burns Realty Company (later the home of Karl Bickel), downtown seawalls, and substantial homes prior to the Great Depression. Even with his financial losses during that period, he managed to pulll himself up by his bootstraps, and begin again...sans any complaining. He is an example we can all learn from during any recession. To watch the video, Click Here...
Tales of Sarasota
This week, Pete tells us about a movie he went to see with a surprise ending in 1950. Aviation buffs will understand where he's coming from, and those of us who have attended a stage production in Great Britian, or British Columbia will, too! However, the irony in this is what the surprise is to all of us. Achtung! Click here to read his blog.
Whitaker Cemetery - From Family Plot to Local Landmark
William Henry Whitaker came to Sarasota Bay in the early 1840s, when it was part of Hillsborough County. (It was part of Manatee County from 1855-1921.) He and his half-brother, Hamilton Valentine Snell, built a log cabin at Yellow Bluffs, a relatively high piece of land overlooking the bay at about the present 12th Street in Sarasota. In 1851, Whitaker married Mary Jane Wyatt of Manatee and their first two children were born in that cabin. For several months during the Third Seminole War, the family moved for safety to Branch Fort on the Manatee River. While there, their third child was born and the Yellow Bluffs home was burned. After the war ended, the Whitaker family moved back from the water, to the east of the present North Tamiami Trail at 12th Street. Through the 1870s the family grew until there were 10 children. Two of the children, Carrie and Grace, died before they reached adulthood, and they were buried to the east of the house. William died in 1888 and was buried near his daughters. By 1895, all the adult children had left home and Mary Jane had moved to Tampa, where she died in 1908. In "One Man's Family," A.K. Whitaker, grandson of William and Mary Jane, recalled that the eight acres of Whitaker property between Hog Creek and 12th Street, from Tamiaim Trail to Cocoanut Avenue, then stood vacant until his father, Dr. Furman Chairs Whitaker, sold it in 1925. During that period, various family members cared for the cemetery. Around 1910, Charles C. Whitaker of Tampa had the cemetery enclosed with cement block fence and a vault made to house the graves of William and Mary. The eight acres around the cemetery remained undeveloped through the 1930s and vandalism marred the graveyard. To provide for long-term care of the cemetery, three lots, including the cemetery, were deeded to the Sara de Soto Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution in exchange for the care and upkeep of the graveyard. Read more...
Restoration of the Hotel de' Talleyrand in Paris The 2009 Annual Meeting/Election of Board Members for the Alliance for Historic Preservation took place at College Hall on the New College campus this past Friday evening.
Guest speakers, University of Florida professor emeritus Susan Tate, and Bradenton architect Linda Stevenson gave an enlightening presentation on the restoration of the Hotel de' Talleyrand in Paris. The famous hotel was built by the Count de Saint-Florentin in 1769, and has been described by France magazine as one of the most beautiful and historically rich buildings in Paris. In 1812, it was acquired by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord, Napoleon's foreign minister. Following World War II it was headquarters for administering the Marshall Plan, and today is one of the U.S. State Department's most valued properties. In 2007 Professor Tate and Ms. Stevenson documented the restoration of this building's magnificent interiors, and showed the audience all the meticulous detailing and refurbishment that was required and performed by highly skilled craftspeople. In addition to the presentation, the Alliance elected three new members to their Board of Directors. They are: Aviva LaGasse, Rebecca Morgan, and Larry Kelleher. (Pictured above holding their book are (L) Linda Stevenson, and (R) Susan Tate - photo by Sarasota History Alive!)
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The Small Subdivision of Indianola With the county purchase of land southwest of Sarasota Square Mall in 2002, the name of a little known 1920s subdivision has come to the fore. Platted in 1920 by Helen Brooks Smith, the 111 acres of Indianola extended from Little Sarasota Bay across the recently paved 9-foot road that was an early part of the Tamiami Trail. Perhaps inspired by the occasional Indian midden found on the property and all along the West Coast of Florida, Smith named the streets Huron, Iriquois, Seminole, Mohican, Wyandotta, and Indianola.
A portion of the subdivision along the water was reserved for parkland, and this area included the home, landscaping, and pond of a previous owner, Everett Barney. While land records reflect a number of transactions between 1856, when Congress deeded the area to the young State of Florida, and 1902 when Barney purchased acreage that would become part of Indianola, there was little development. Barney came from Springfield, Massachusetts, and previously had spent a number of winters along the Manatee River. On Little Sarasota Bay he built a winter home with substantial landscaping along the water, and in a pond north of the house he raised alligators and marketed the hides. Barney was an inventor and the variety of products he patented illustrates the breath of his interests. He obtained patents for clamp-on ice and roller skates, rudder hangings and steering devices for sailing, a non-capsizing life-saving sled for use on thin ice, a paper performing machine, and improvements on guns. Production and sale of roller skates in a partnership with John Berry had resulted in a sizeable fortune. Read more... (photo credit: Sarasota County History Center)
Yesterday's Sarasota Calendar
Also, be sure and check out Whit's website at: www.ChickenHillNC.com. Today in 1909, in another great advance toward civilization, Sarasota voted 31 to 4 to award an electric power franchise to the Sarasota Ice and Power Company. After nearly a year, the city's modern system was switched on. One bulb at Five Points, the other at the intersection of Main Street and Palm Avenue. Soon merchants could count on occasional electricity between dusk and midnight (when the juice was turned on ). The exceptions were moonlit nights (when Ice and Power didn't operate) and whenever the machinery broke down (often!). (photo credit: Sarasota County History Center)
History Locator
This week we are honoring the Circle at St. Armands Historical Marker. It reads: Decades after conception, St. Armands Circle has fulfilled John Ringling's dream of a premier shopping district. Conceived during Florida's real estate boom, St. Armands was part of the John Ringling Estates development and the jewel of Ringling Isles, an ambitious venture encompassing planned resorts, a casino, subdivisions and a shopping area scattered from Bird and Lido keys to southern Longboat Key. Designed by architect John J. Watson of Ohio and Sarasota engineer Leon Pickett, the circle and surrounding development were made accessible by construction of Ringling Causeway in 1926. Read reverse side...
Where Am I?Each week we offer a "Where Am I?" type of question to test your recall of places you have seen, but might take for granted as part of the general landscape. Beginning today we are taking this popular brain teaser a step further. We have requested local merchants to donate a nice prize to the person who is first to guess the correct location, event, historical person's name, or whatever quiz we come up with. Please join us in the fun of testing your observation abilities. Instead of normally 'clicking through' right away for the answer, you will have to wait a week, when the winner of the weekly contest is also announced.
Please submit the form that allows you to guess the answer. Click here to fill it out, and next week we will announce the winner, and give the solution to the question. Answer early, since the first person with the correct answer, claims the prize. Contestants may only win once per month.
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When pioneer settlers to this area died, family members typically buried them near their house, in what often became family graveyards. The Whitaker Cemetery is one of those family graveyards.
Every day of the year we highlight what took place in Sarasota's history, thanks to Whit Rylee and Tom Payne's extensive research and sense of humor. Frequently check our website's 
Sarasota History Alive! is spotlighting our county's historical markers for you in our weekly e-Newsletters. No sense in trying to read them as you drive by at 40 miles per hour any longer.
Our sponsor this week is the Avenida de Colores. Celebrating a 400-year-old type of performance art, the Avenida de Colores Chalk Festival in Burns Square will welcome over 20 professional street-painters traveling to Sarasota to join over 40 local artists in painting the streets of Pineapple Avenue. During the second annual two-day festival, large temporary artworks will come to life on the street surface where the public can be a part of the art process. A children's section with hundreds of 2'X2' squares will be chalked by aspiring Picasso's. Music, spirits and fun for all! Saturday, May 2nd, 9a.m.-Midnight and Sunday, May 3, 10a.m.-8p.m. For more information visit, 
This week's clues: Aren't I a fancy scroll on a historic building? Don't you wish all buildings had stuck with that tradition of putting the completion date in full view of passersby? Anyhow, I almost met with the wrecking ball, but I was saved and now am almost totally refurbished for your enjoyment. My owner would be happy to see you, and I can see you entering from my vantage point. 
This week's prize is a 24-pack of professional chalk to do sidewalk and street drawings. Good times..."Sarasota History Alive!" is a part of the "Florida History Alive!" network
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