Longboat Key Historical Society Gives New Life to the Past

The organization’s new location at Longboat Key’s Town Center will serve as a museum showcasing archives, artifacts and historical objects.

BY PATRICIA HORWELL CONTRIBUTOR

Michael Drake’s dream of finding a permanent home for the Longboat Key Historical Society’s collection of artifacts has finally come true. The organization has moved and is planning to be open to the public in Town

Center on Bay Isles Drive by summer.

“The Historical Society’s been packed up in boxes for the better part of 10 years,” says Drake, the society’s president. Historical documents, photographs, books and other memorabilia have been collected and preserved for 37 years by the Historical Society, which was founded by Ralph and Claire Hunter, the founders and origi- nal owners of the Longboat Observer

Sometime around 2017, after the Longboat Key Center for the Arts in Longbeach Village was sold to local developer Jim Clabaugh, Drake wondered what would become of the last two historic Whitney Beach cottages on the 2.3-acre site. Built in the late

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