They seized opportunities

MONICA ROMAN GAGNIER A+E EDITOR

While seizing the opportunity to create thriving, and unique, communities in Sarasota and Lakewood Ranch took the proverbial village, three individuals provided the vision to help launch those efforts.

Frontier Florida was not for the faint of heart, so much so that some of the Scottish settlers who arrived in the 1800s decided to return to their homeland.

But the area’s trailblazers didn’t.

They helped build the region into what it is today. They made tangible, lasting changes in their environment and inspired others to do the same.

LEWIS COLSON: FORMER SLAVE

MAKES HUGE IMPACT

Former slave Lewis Colson arrived in Sarasota in 1884 and helped map out the city. He became a spiritual leader in the African American community.

Is he well known today for his exploits? Perhaps not.

A man and a woman talking on a bench at Selby Five Points Park probably don’t realize they owe Colson a debt of gratitude, and the same can be said of the man coming out of the Selby Library.

If these Sarasota denizens notice the historical marker in the park at One Central Avenue and take the time to read it, they will learn that Colson worked as an assistant to engineer Richard E. Paulson of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Co.

Born in 1844, Colson arrived in Sarasota in 1884. The following year, Colson drove the stake into the ground at Five Points, which became the center of the city that grew from a fishing village.

There were many firsts Colson’s life. He was the first Black to register to vote in Manatee County. Along with his wife Irene, a midwife, he founded the first African American church in Sarasota after becoming a minister.

Colson was the first minister of the Bethlehem Baptist Church, where he served from 1899 to 1915.

In 1925, the first hotel was constructed in Sarasota for Blacks. It was named the Colson Hotel. It had 25 rooms, all reserved for African Americans, who were not allowed to stay in other hotels.

Why did Blacks need their own hotel in Sarasota? Like everybody else, they were caught up in the Florida Land Boom of the 1920s, which created work.

“Sarasota was a growing community, and African Americans were learning about job opportunities,” said Vickie Oldham, CEO of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition Inc. Oldham was interviewed for the WEDU PBS documentary, “The Sarasota Experience.”

The days of being first didn’t end for Colson when his life ended in 1922. He and Irene were the first and only Blacks buried in the historic Rosemary Cemetery, which was owned by his former employer.

JOHN SCHROEDER PUT LAKEWOOD RANCH ON THE MAP

John Schroeder is not a household name. But at one time the German immigrant, who arrived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1846, ran one of the largest lumber companies in the

U.S.

In 1905, Schroeder bought a 45-acre property that eventually spawned Lakewood Ranch. Schroeder was attracted to Florida for its timber, but the friends he sold his land to viewed it as a vacationland.

To keep his Wisconsin lumber mills humming, Schroeder needed wood. He found it in Florida. In 1905, he put together a company called Schroeder-Manatee Ranch, which is the parent company of today’s planned community of Lakewood Ranch.

He began buying parcels of land, assembling a 48-square-mile tract that eventually became known as Lakewood Ranch. After his death, his three sons continued to run the company that bore his name. They decided to diversify into furniture.

But things didn’t work out for the Schroeders in the furniture business. They needed money, and they needed it fast. Their friends, the Uihleins, bailed them out by buying their land in 1922 for as little as $2 per acre.

But friends being friends, the Uihleins kept the name SchroederManatee Ranch Co., or SMR, for short.

For nearly 70 years after the Uihleins took control, agriculture was the focus, but these activities weren’t always profitable. No matter. The Uihleins used their Florida land primarily for recreation.

In the 1980s, however, SMR began taking the first steps toward building a planned community, and that included holding discussions with Manatee County Commissioners. It would take until 1994 for SMR to gain the consensus and regula- tory approvals needed to create its first neighborhood, Summerfield. Slowly, the community began to take shape with the addition of homes, corporate offices, country clubs, a business and entertainment hub, a post office, a hospital, a sports complex and a polo club.

A lot of the credit for SMR’s transition into real estate development goes to the company’s past two presidents — John Clarke, who retired in 2002, and Rex Jensen, who currently holds the title of CEO. Lakewood Ranch has a population of about 63,000 residents in 33 residential villages. It is considered the No. 1 planned community in the U.S.

BERTHA PALMER LEFT HER MARK ON SARASOTA Chicago socialite and Florida land developer Bertha Palmer hasn’t been seen in Sarasota since 1918, but her presence is still felt everywhere.

History remembers her as the wife of wealthy Chicago developer Potter Palmer. But Bertha carved out a new life in Florida as a businesswoman.

The community of Palmer Ranch bears her name. Many of the streets she named are unchanged — Honoré (her maiden name and the name of her first son), Lockwood Ridge, Tuttle, Webber and Macintosh.

Who was this formidable woman? She was born in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1849 and married Potter Palmer, a man more than 20 years her senior. He built Chicago’s famous Palmer House Hotel, which still exists today in The Loop. The legendary Chicago department store Marshall Field was originally founded by a consortium led by Potter Palmer.

After the Fire of 1871 wiped out the Palmer House and other Chicago landmarks, Bertha helped her husband and other city leaders rebuild. When the widowed Palmer and her family arrived in Sarasota on a luxurious Pullman train car in February 1910, the city’s only hotel was so humble that a newly opened sanitarium was quickly commandeered to accommodate the party.

It wasn’t long before Palmer bought more than 80,000 acres in and around Sarasota. Palmer proved herself an able steward of the land. She is credited with rolling out innovations that improved the Florida ranching, citrus, dairy and farming industries before she died in 1918. She was no stranger to how draining land could create development potential. It was what her husband and his business partners did to pave the way for Lakeshore Drive and the Gold Coast of Chicago.

Such was Palmer’s influence that other well-heeled Midwesterners followed her lead. One of them was Owen Burns, who gave Burns Court it name.

Burns bought the holdings of the Florida Mortgage and Investment Co. from Sarasota pioneer John H. Gillespie for $35,000, gaining ownership of would be 75% of today’s city limits, according to historian Jeff LaHurd.

“Give the Lady What She Wants,” was the axiom coined by Marshall Field. In the case of Bertha Palmer, the lady gave Sarasota what she wanted — her idea of civilization.