History of Sarasota

ing family, remained in Sarasota along with a determined member of the developer's family, John Hamilton Gillespie. He was a manager for Florida Mortgage & Investment Company, and began to develop Sarasota following the plan for the failed colony. In 1887 he built the De Sota Hotel which opened on February 25 hosting a large social event and celebration. Eventually, tourists arrived at a dock built on the bay. In May 1886 he completed a two hole golf course which is reported to be the first golf courses in America. By 1905, he had completed a 110-acre (45 ha) nine-hole course to support his favorite pastime, golf.

Wilson

Rose Phillips Wilson and her husband C. V. S. Wilson founded The Sarasota Times newspaper in 1899. It was the first newspaper published in Sarasota and Rose Wilson continued publication of the paper alone until 1923 after her husband died in 1910. She participated in the leadership of the community through many organizations and provided editorial opinions on most early issues that were published in the editions.

Well respected among her peers in journalism, the Tarpon Springs Leader ranked the Times under Rose's ownership as "the best weekly paper in the state". After the state legislature passed a bill to create Sarasota County, it was to Rose Wilson that the telegram was sent to announce it. When a referendum endorsed the split from Manatee locally, Wilson changed the name of her newspaper to The Sarasota County Times.

Rose Wilson lived through the World War I period, the 1920s boom period, the depression, World War II, and Sarasota’s second boom period in the 1950s. After her retirement