Florida has always had a “For Sale” sign planted on its border. Philadelphia industrialist Hamilton Disston saw the opportunity during an 1877 fishing trip to Florida and thought it would be smart to drain wetlands for agriculture. In 1881, he purchased 4 million acres for $1 million. That’s right, 25 cents an acre. The New York Times reported that it made him the largest single landholder in the world. Six months later, after dicing, developing and advertising, he sold 2 million of those acres for a nice profit.
Promises of paradise, get-rich-quick promotions, buying, developing and reselling are the threads that weave throughout the entirety of the Sunshine State’s history, including Sarasota’s. And while Sarasota attracted its share of dreamers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—from the ill-fated group of Scottish colonizers in 1885 to Chicago society queen Bertha Palmer in 1910—it was during the economic prosperity and frenetic era of the Roaring ’20s that the Sarasota we know today began to take shape.
In 1921, Sarasota wrestled independence from Manatee County, giving it the autonomy to chart its own future. By then, the country had navigable roads, and Henry Ford’s black Model T enabled Americans to travel beyond their hometowns by car for the first time. This was the beginning of the Florida Land Boom, a five-year period of feverish real estate speculation that attracted people to Florida and fueled a dramatic rise in real estate prices.
The Sarasota Chamber of Commerce, formed in 1920, attracted thousands of newcomers by promoting themes of health in our “salubrious climate,” wealth in the skyrocketing real estate market and the happiness that one expects to follow such enviable health and wealth…