The Story of Sarasota : The History of the City and County of Sarasota, Florida

by Karl H. Grismer

376 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1946

Reviews

[Ruth Alessi]

I picked this book up for its chapter on the failed Scottish Ormiston colony, and particularly the Browning family, but read the rest to see what it had to say. Written in 1946, it suffers from the usual "Spanish colonialism bad, British/American colonialism great," which fails to account for 200 years of the Spanish trading peacefully with and working alongside the native Floridian tribes, while depicting the Seminole Wars was an unfortunate misunderstanding that was all cleared up by deporting the Seminoles to a landlocked high plain. Yeah...

It is a book of its time, and being written in 1946, the author had access to many people associated with those earliest years of Sarasota's history. Probably my main complaint would be the chronology. As in, it's lacking. The book describes the pioneer families in one chapter, and the land investors in another, but they are interacting during that time, and you get accounts of those interactions in both chapters. If you aren't paying attention, you wouldn't realize the book is describing the same events twice.

I wouldn't let the book's failings deter potential readers. There's a lot to be learned about how people viewed the world in different times, especially since those people were closer in time to the events described.

Aside from the Ormiston Colony, which was thoroughly described thanks to the author's access to Alex Browning's unpublished memoir, the book is stuffed with great gems about Sarasota's history. The very end includes places of interest and a great yearbook-type "Who's Who" complete with pictures, of the city's influential citizens, in chronological order.