In the 1880s, the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company placed articles in newspapers in Scotland exclaiming the wonders of Sarasota. They promised an estate of forty acres and a town lot, which could be purchased for only 100 pounds sterling.
More than 60 Scottish colonists paid for their 40-acre estates and town lots. They called themselves the Ormiston Colony, and arrived in New York City from Glasgow on December 10, 1885.
The Scots were promised the town would be built and ready for them. Guess what? It wasn't. The colonists finally arrived in Sarasota bay on December 28, 1885. There was not a sign of a town anywhere. It was then that the colonists found out that the Town of Sarasota just existed on a map.
Existing settlers helped the colonists the best way they could. The colonists began to look for their “40 acres” and soon found out that many were miles from the “town” and were only good for cattle ranges. These colonists were not farmers and didn't know about working Florida soil.
The old Sarasota pier looking towards Five Points and the De Soto Hotel in 1890.
Discouraged, the colonists began to leave by the end of January 1886. Many felt they would starve if they stayed. All money invested by them was lost and many had to borrow money to travel north to stay with friends or relatives. By May 1, 1886, only a few families remained. That same year, John W. Gillespie arrived, and his company, Florida Mortgage and Investment Co., Ltd., would make an attempt to revive the colony. Steamship connections were established with Tampa. Mr. Gillespie built the De Soto Hotel, and he laid out what was perhaps the first practice golf course in America.
Fishing as an industry began to flourish. The Spanish-American War in 1898 added to the prosperity, as cattlemen drove herds to slaughter to supply meat for the hungry soldiers. Sarasota got its first newspaper in 1899. In November of that same year, telephone service arrived. The Seaboard Railroad extended its line from Tampa to Sarasota at least five years earlier than it had planned.
Sarasota was incorporated as a town on October 14, 1902, and Mr. Gillespie served as the Town’s first Mayor. He was subsequently elected to five additional one year terms. In addition to the railroad connection, the town boasted a yacht club, a new school, and ice plant, a cemetery, theater, municipal water works, electric plant, a second newspaper, and a sanitarium opened in 1908.
Bertha Palmer and her family visited Sarasota in 1910. They liked the location so much; they decided to purchase some 80,000 acres in the area which was at that time part of south Manatee County. She established her inland cattle ranch called “Meadow Sweet Pastures” along the Myakka River after building her home named “The Oaks” on the old Webb property on Little Sarasota Bay in Osprey.
(Some text on this page is from Sarasota County Historical Resources and Sarasota History Alive)