Gillespie Park

Gillespie Park. . (side 1) , John Hamilton Gillespie, the father of Sarasota, arrived here in 1886 at the age of 34. His mission was to rejuvenate the failed Ormiston Colony, a group of 60 Scottish settlers who had come in 1885 expecting to find a "Little Scotland" where they could become prosperous farmers. In reality, Sarasota was still a harsh wilderness the colonists were ill-equipped to survive. Gillespie wasted no time making improvements to turn Sarasota into a thriving community. He had streets grubbed and cleared, the municipal wharf improved, trees planted and public water troughs installed at Five Points and elsewhere. Gillespie's personal contributions included several downtown buildings, the DeSoto Hotel and founding the Church of the Redeemer, which he served as both a lay reader and deacon., Gillespie was elected Sarasota's first mayor in 1902, and he was widely known as Florida's "golfing mayor." He had introduced golf to Florida in the 1880s by building a two-hole practice course near his Sarasota home. He later built the town's first 9-hole course and designed several more courses in Florida and Cuba for railroad magnate Henry Plant. (Continued on other side). (side 2) (Continued from other side). Owen Burns, a banker from Chicago, arrived in Sarasota in 1910. He bought all of John Hamilton Gillespie's Sarasota holdings for $35,000 and began preparing the land for development. His first subdivision was nearby Inwood Park, for which he advertised lots priced as low as $125. Many more Burns projects followed, including citrus groves, more subdivisions and the El Vernona Hotel, which boasted 150 guest rooms and a price tag upwards of half a million dollars., Despite his success, Burns never forgot the man who sold him the land to get started in Sarasota. In 1924, he honored the recently deceased John Hamilton Gillespie by selling the city a valuable nine- acre plot of land for a park, which he recommended be named Gillespie Park. The city adopted Burns's recommendation and by the end of 1926 the new park featured a playground and courts for tennis, volleyball, basketball, horseshoes, shuffleboard, roque and more. Brumby Lake on the park's eastern side was named for James R. Brumby, commissioner of public works at the time. In December 1926, Gillespie Park placed second out of more than a thousand municipal parks entered into a national playground beautification contest.