Bradenton Kiwanis Club / Kiwanis Trailer Park

Bradenton Kiwanis Club, also, Kiwanis Trailer Park. . , BRADENTON KIWANIS CLUB , The Bradenton Kiwanis Club was originally chartered on August 22. 1922 as the Manatee River Kiwanis Club. Later the name of the club was changed to Kiwanis Club of Bradenton. Founding members. Robert M. Beall, Whitney Curry, John T. Campbell, Dewey A. Dye, Everett Patrick Green. Sr., John Pope Harllee, William Thomas Harrison, James A. Howze, W.L. Kimball, W.P. Kirby, W.V. Lathrop, William A. Manning, Elon Rood, G.P. Smythe and M.O. Thomas first met in June 1922 to organize the club. On Tuesday, September 5, 1922, at noon, the first Manatee River Kiwanis Club luncheon meeting was held in the dining room of the Juplinor Hotel located at 435 12th Street West, Bradentown. Over time, the Club met in a variety of locations until 1953 when it moved into the Kiwanis Hall at the corner of 14th Street and 21st Avenue West until 2013, when it moved to Manatee Performing Arts Center., KIWANIS TRAILER PARK , In 1936, under the leadership of Dan Blalock, Sr., the Bradenton Kiwanis Club constructed this trailer park to attract winter visitors to Bradenton and provided a place for those with travel trailers to stay for $1.50 a week. This created a source of revenue to the Club for community projects and promoted local business. By 1950, 1,190 lots filled the grounds, and became the largest trailer park in the world. By 1966, the Club decided to reduce the number of spaces making individual lots larger and creating sites for mobile homes. The Club continued to use profits, to fund community service and capital improvement projects throughout the Bradenton and Manatee County, investing millions of dollars into local activities and organizations. The Club sold the park to residents in 1996 and established the Bradenton Kiwanis Foundation to continue its work in the community.