The 2013-2014 season of events at the Historical Society looks like it’s going to be great! We’re having everything from women’s history to pirates (the real-life history for adults PLUS the fun, PG-rated version!) to yoga classes. And our annual favorites, the Narrated Historic Sarasota Bay Le Barge Cruise and the private tour of Ca’d’Zan.
History needs a modern helping hand
Historical Society Receives Grant for Security Cameras at Two Historic Buildings
The Community Foundation of Sarasota County awards funds to further historic preservation through security cameras at the historic Bidwell-Wood House and the Crocker Memorial Church at Pioneer Park
The Historical Society of Sarasota County is the recipient of a grant from the Community Foundation of Sarasota County for a security camera system for the historic Bidwell-Wood House (1882) and the Crocker Memorial Church (1901). The grant, in the amount of $3,770, is from the Frances T. Bourne Fund at The Community Foundation of Sarasota County.
“It’s a sad fact that almost any historical site, monument, or even museum in our country can be a target of senseless vandalism,” said Historical Society president Howard Rosenthal, “but we can all be encouraged that through modern security technology, we can discourage and diminish violence to places we strive to preserve for future generations. This grant for security cameras at Sarasota County’s oldest private residence and at the Crocker Memorial Church demonstrates that our community takes pride in Sarasota history and supports the structures that bear witness to our pioneer past. The whole community can be thankful and grateful for this grant from The Community Foundation because it helps Historical Society members preserve and protect these important buildings.”
In 2006 the Bidwell-Wood House and the Crocker Memorial Church were moved by the City of Sarasota to Pioneer Park and placed under the protection of the Historical Society of Sarasota County, a nonprofit community membership organization of approximately 400 annual and life members. The mission of the Historical Society of Sarasota County is to create public awareness of the rich historical heritage of Sarasota and the State of Florida. The Society encourages inquiry, research, memorabilia preservation and protection of historic sites. The Bidwell-Wood House and the Crocker Memorial Church are open for docent-led tours and for community events organized under the auspices of the Historical Society.
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RIP Cy Bispham
December 11 1925 – June 26 2013
We mourn the passing of Cy Bispham, and extend our condolences to his wife, Doris and the family.
We were honored to have featured the Bisphams at a past meeting of the Historical Society of Sarasota County.
Read his obituary in the local paper.
Read an article about Bisphams’ Dairy on Sarasota History Alive, and what Jeff Lahurd wrote about Cy.
With thanks to Arnold Berns for this photograph of Cy and Doris regaling our membership with stories of old Sarasota.Tell the world:
President’s Letter 2012-2013
Here’s what the Historical Society’s President, Howard Rosenthal, reports to the membership on May 30, 2013. Read the President’s 2013 President Letter.
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An historic look at Sarasota County
If it’s too wet or too hot some day soon, take a comfy meander through the archives of the Sarasota news, courtesy of Google News.
You never know what you might find… like Continue reading
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Giving our members and visitors a hand
Directors Ron McCarty and Linda Garcia confer recently with Sarasota City Planner Dr. Clifford Smith over what type of hand rails would be historically appropriate on the Crocker Memorial Church.
The need for rails has been evident since Continue reading
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Sunshine, scenery, and some daubs of color!
Both our historic buildings, the Bidwell-Wood House (1882) and the Crocker Memorial Church (1901), attract admiring passing glances in Pioneer Park. But these plein air (“open-air”) painters enjoyed Continue reading
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Come dig us… or dig WITH us!
Calling All Gardeners*Marsha Fottler, Landscape Committee Chair
If pulling weeds, planting, pruning and spreading mulch are strategies you embrace for relieving stress and getting exercise, your Historical Society has a opportunity you can’t pass up – a work day at the Bidwell-Wood House garden on Saturday, May 4, 2013 from 9 a.m. until about 1 p.m. Bring your own garden tools and gloves. Mulch will be supplied as well as cold drinks. Also, if you have any plants you want to donate to the landscape bring them along (Ed. note: Drop them off; you don’t have to DIG if you have other plans!) and integrate them into our members’ growing collection. The aim to have the members’garden in tip-top condition for our annual meeting and potluck picnic on May 11. Give an hour and help the garden to grow!
* Pinnies and gaiters optional.
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Do you have… or will you help get… what Linda needs?
Linda, our Site Manager and Board member, has issued our Spring Wish List. Might you have/ know of/ be willing to contribute to any of these needs at the Historical Society? She’d love to hear from you!
Maybe it’s just $30 for flashlights. Maybe you can strongarm your talented specialist buddy into tuning the organ. Or maybe it’s something in between. Even something as humble as donating paper goods can help us preserve, protect, and polish the Bidwell-Wood House and the Crocker Church in Pioneer Park.
Click for the Wish List.
After you choose what you can fund, let Linda know if you would like to be acknowledged her on the blog, or if you’d rather keep your good works to yourself. And as they say nowadays, TIA (Thanks in Advance!)
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The Herb Garden
by Marsha Fottler, Chair, Landscape Committee
The HSOSC herb Garden is near the detached kitchen at the Bidwell-Wood House. In past times (and now) it would have been appropriate to plant an herb and limited vegetable garden near the kitchen for the convenience of the cook. Our garden is mostly for demonstration but this year’s crop of cherry tomatoes is pretty tasty.
After the front-yard garden and the brick pathways were installed at the Bidwell-Wood House (see Florida-friendly plants at the Historical Society) , our members thought it would be educationally useful to build an herb garden near the detached kitchen.
Such a garden would Continue reading
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We’re excited!
Crocker Church is all ready to host YOUR event!
Our campus in Pioneer Park has been bustling this past week: visitors and shoppers and even some alumni!
Plein Air painters, city planners, and some pony-tailed guy installing a bird bath. People playing instruments, people discussing books, people having lunch on the Back Porch. Weeders in our herb garden, butterflies all over, and even some folks who were looking for the Manatee Historical Park.
If your group, family, club need a centrally-located, historic, pleasant place for a gathering, and if you want to help us protect, preserve, and polish two of the oldest buildings in Sarasota County, visit our Facility Rentals page, then give us a call!
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Has it been a memorable year for your family? Make it an historical year!
As another “season” draws to a close here in Sarasota County, it’s time, naturally enough, for Historical Society fans, members, and followers to look back.
Did something memorable happen Continue reading
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How Sarasota Became a Performing Arts Destination
How Sarasota Became a Performing Arts Destination
A panel of performing arts experts discusses how Sarasota evolved into a thriving performing arts community that attracts both tourists and permanent residents. This Conversation at the Crocker is the seventh in a series of year-long panel discussions organized and produced by the Historical Society of Sarasota County with support from SARASOTA Magazine.
There is more to the Sarasota area than great beaches, a welcoming climate and key lime pie. Tourists and those moving to our shores know that Sarasota offers a lively performing arts community with its own opera house, ballet company, symphony, theaters galore, choral music, jazz, you name it. We’re a small vibrant city with the
performing arts amenities of a much larger metropolis.
Howard Millman will chair the panel in April at the Historical Society’s Conversation at the Crocker
But it didn’t happen overnight or without concentrated effort by both visionary professionals and talented volunteers. Learn how Sarasota became a performing arts destination when a panel of experts led by esteemed director Howard Millman takes the stage at The Crocker Memorial Church on Tuesday, April 9, at 7 p.m. for a conversation among colleagues that reveals how and why Sarasota celebrates the performing arts.
It’s big business in this town.
Appearing with Howard Millman (theater) on April 9, will be Continue reading
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Rah Rah Riverview High!
Click for photography credits.
The Historical Society extends its best wishes for Riverview High School’s two History Bowl Teams, heading for the National History Bowl in Washington DC in April.
Click to learn more about History Bowl
The junior and senior History Bowl team members take rigorous history courses, including AP European History, AP U.S. History, IB history of the Americas and AP world history. Perhaps some day, we could hear them on Sarasota County history!
Here’s the Sarasota Herald-Trib article.
History Bowl logo from here; photo of Riverview High School from here.
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Life is a Circus, at least in Sarasota
In 1927 on this date, John Ringling announced that Sarasota would become the winter quarters of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In 1960, Ringling moved its winter quarters to Venice and the impact of the circus expanded into the larger Sarasota County area.
Where’s Big Bertha now? How does Brooklyn sound? Read about the circus, 2013: A New York Times article.
Thanks to J. Whitcomb Rylee, http://www.sarasotacircushistory.com/, Lynn Harding, http://www.visitsarasota.org/, and the State Archives of Florida.
The Historical Society of Sarasota County 