At the corner of Eighth Street and Central Avenue, long before high-rises, restaurants and boutiques reshaped the Rosemary District, a modest yellow stucco building stood as one of the few safe havens for Black travelers in Southwest Florida. It was called the Colson Hotel.
Built in 1926 during Sarasota’s land boom, the Colson was more than a boarding house. For the city’s Black residents and visitors during segregation, it offered something rare and profound: safety, dignity and belonging.
The story begins with Irene Colson and the Rev. Lewis Colson, who arrived in Sarasota in the late 1880s. Irene was a midwife and caregiver to the Black community, and her husband, Lewis, a formerly enslaved man who helped survey and plat the city of Sarasota, became the first pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, the city’s first Black congregation.
Edwin Burns, the brother of prominent Sarasota developer Owen Burns, was inspired by the Colsons’ leadership and faith, and when he built the Colson Hotel, he named it after them. The 25-room building included a barber shop and a soft drink parlor, serving Black laborers, musicians and families who were excluded from white-only hotels downtown…