Scotsman John Hamilton Gillespie came to Sarasota 125 years ago. What he did here is the subject of a celebration this week
A year ago, Sarasota celebrated the 100th anniversary of the arrival of boomtime developer Owen Burns, who came here and created a city out of what was then a sleepy fishing town.
But 24 years before that, another outsider arrived, and what he did was create a sleepy fishing village, and then turn it into a town.
In 1886, John Hamilton Gillespie was sent by his father, Sir John Gillespie, of Scotland, to resuscitate the “Ormiston Colony,” which was established a few months earlier by 60 intrepid families that essentially were deceived by promises of paradise. For them, Sarasota turned out to be an inhospitable and unforgiving wilderness.
Read more at the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.