Walking Tour of Point Pleasant

BEGIN AT Manatee County Historical Records Library, 1405 4th Ave. W., Bradenton.

Manatee County Historical Records Library, 1405 4th Ave. W., (1918):
In February of 1918, the Carnegie Corporation granted $10,000 for the construction of a library for the City of Bradenton.  The community had worked for twelve years to convince them to make this grant.  The City of Bradenton provided the property and the annual operating expenses.  The building was constructed from plans supplied by the Carnegie Foundation.  It was opened to the public in October of 1918.  In 1956, an addition was made to the east of the building.  It served as the community's library until 1978 when a new county library was built on the waterfront.  In 1977, R.B. "Chips" Shore, Clerk of the Circuit Court, found the county courthouse strained to the limit with public records dating back to 1855.  All of the records were placed on microfilm and the originals were moved to this building which became the first archival library in Florida under the auspices of a Clerk of Circuit Court.

Leave the Records Library and walk west to corner of 15th Street and 4th Avenue West.

15th Street was once called Prospect Avenue until in the late 1920s, streets were numbered.  (Visit Carnegie Library to see postcards of Prospect Avenue)

See 404 and 410 15th Street West. Both of these houses show up on the 1911 Sanborn maps, but we do not know the exact date of their construction.  Nor do we know who built the houses.  A variety of people have lived in the houses.  At one point, two widows lived here.  M.E. Benedict in 410 and Mary Marshal in 404.  The house at 410 was purchased by Stafford and Jane Burgess.   Stafford operated a cafeteria in downtown Bradenton.  Their son, Donald, donated it to the Presbyterian Church at his death.

Many of the houses we will see today were seasonal rentals.  The 1939 Sanborn Fire Insurance maps state that Bradenton’s population was 12,000 in the winter and 6,500 in the summer!

1500 4th Ave. W.: The house does not show up on the 1911 Sanborn maps, but is on the 1922 maps.  It is also listed in the 1921 City Directory, and the house is dated on the tax rolls around 1918.  It was probably built by Alan A. and Hazel Barker who were living in the house in 1921 and still there in 1947.  Alan owned the Barker and case Garage and was also vice president of the Bradenton Citrus Growers Association.  His wife, Hazel was on the Library Board.  

322 15th Street: Though they did not build this house which exists on the 1911 Sanborn maps, the family that lived in this house the longest was the Emmet Patrick and Gertrude Green family.  The Green Bridge which crosses the Manatee River from Bradenton to Palmetto is named for E.P Green who was on the Florida State Board of Transportation and convinced lawmakers to construct the first bridge from Bradenton to Palmetto which is now the old fishing pier.  E.P. Green grew up in Cortez and was a member of the Green family who helped to settle that fishing village.  In addition to serving on the state road board, he worked for the Bradenton Publishing Company whose offices were on Main Street where B’Town Café is located now.  He also helped found Producers Fertilizer Company and Wyman and Green Insurance and Realty.

310 15th Street: This house is on the 1911 Sanborn maps and is on the county tax rolls as being built in 1910.  It has had many occupants, including John H. Howard, who sold wholesale groceries, feed and fertilizer, and John B. Zoller who managed a lumber company, but the one who lived here the longest was Hervey W. Witmer, the first licensed veterinarian in Bradenton.

304 15th Street: This house was built around 1910 and shows up on the 1911 Sanborn maps.  It was the home of Ryan E. and Beulah Dowling.  Ryan owned Dowling Feed Store.  Ryan’s parents, William, who worked at the Feed Store, and Jane also lived here

Now go west on 3rd Avenue which was once called Upham Avenue.

Upham Avenue got its name from Samuel C. Upham who owned a cottage closer to Main Street called Sunnyside.  Upham was called “The Scribe” of Braidentown as he was a well known author and published a promotional book for the area that he called “Notes From Sunland.”  In this book, he interviewed some of the early settlers such as Madam Jo Atzeroth and her daughter, Eliza.

204 15th Street East: This house was built about 1951 and is part of the Sarasota School of Architecture.   The Sarasota School of Architecture, sometimes called "Sarasota Modern," is a regional style of post-war architecture that emerged on Florida's Central West Coast. Many of the architects who pioneered this style became world renowned later in their careers, and several significant buildings remain in  "Sarasota, Florida" Sarasota, Florida today. This architecture played a key role in helping the community to define itself as a patron of arts.

Sarasota School of Architecture is characterized by its attention to climate and terrain. Large sunshades, innovative ventilation systems, oversized sliding glass doors, Floating staircases, and walls of  Jalousie windows dominate many of these buildings, mostly built between 1941 and 1966. Paul Rudolph, Bert Brosmith, Ralph Twitchell, Victor Lundy, Tim Seibert, Jack West, Philip Hiss, Gene Leedy and Mark Hampton are the leading names of this particular regional style. Rudolph is arguably the biggest star, as the fanfare over the recent renovations of his Yale Art and Architecture Building attests to. However, within Sarasota he also designed a number of houses, schools, churches and public facilities. His Sanderling Beach Club is now on the National Register of Historic Places, and Riverview High School was recently nominated for the list of America's Most Endangered Places.

Sarasota Modern buildings can best be seen in Lido Shores, where Rudolph's Umbrella House sits alongside other important Sarasota Modern houses in this once exclusively Sarasota School of Architecture subdivision. Sarasota High School and Riverview High School also feature Rudolph's buildings.

1520 3rd Avenue: This house was built prior to 1911.  It also had many residents, but the family to live here the longest was Andrew and Beryl Wing.  Andrew, along with his brothers, George and William, owned Wing Brothers Realty.  Their motto was “Rise with Wings.”  After Florida’s real estate crash in 1926, Andrew worked as a painter and his wife, Beryl, worked as a sales woman at Montgomery Roberts Department Store.

1526 3rd Avenue: This home was owned by Mrs. Mary Fuller Stanton.  She was the wife of Samuel Stanton who owned a shipyard on the Hudson River in New York.  They built many wooden and iron hull ships up to 300 feet in length. Mary and Samuel had three boys, William Henry Stanton, born April 10, 1861, Curtis Henderson Stanton born April 9, 1865 and Samuel Ward Stanton, born in 1870.  In 1882, Samuel Stanton (their father) made a trip to Bradenton to consider operating a steamship line.  He bought 600 feet of river front property about 300 feet west of Main Street and a 13 acre orange grove on Terra Ceia.  He returned to Newburgh, New York and designed an iron hull steamer he named the Manatee.  She was 125 feel in length, 32 feet in width and drew 4 ½ feet of water when loaded.  With a single cylinder engine of 200 horsepower, she had the forward speed of ten miles per hour.  She was launched in August of 1884 and one month later, Samuel sold his shipyard in New York, loaded all his belongings and family as well as machinery for a small sawmill aboard the Manatee.  Leaving in October, it took 20 days for the manatee with the actual travel time of seven days to reach Bradenton.  He set up a sawmill on the southwest corner of his property (now 2nd Avenue and 14th Street West) and the family lived aboard the ship until a new home could be built right where the Central Library is today.  The house was completed in 1885.  Samuel operated the Manatee as a freight and passenger boat until he sold her in 1886.  After the Stanton’s sold their large home on the river to Dr. F.C. Whitaker in 1905, they lived in this smaller home.  Their son, Samuel Ward Stanton became a naval artist and died on the Titanic in 1912.  In 1927, the house was used by Captain Sara Guess and Captain Luella Knox, members of the Salvation Army.  Later, the house was owned by Reuben and Mary Houck.  Reuben was a taxi driver.

1532 3rd Avenue West: Many, many people have lived in this house which was built around 1910.  It appears to have served as a rental house for people moving into the city.  Many went on to purchase homes of their own in other parts of Bradenton.

1538 3rd Avenue West: This house was also built around 1910, perhaps at the same time as its neighbor.  The house was occupied for many years by Mrs. Sarah J. Duckwall who along with her son ran Duckwall’s Grocery Store on Old Main Street.  She was also a dressmaker.

1544 3rd Avenue West: This house was built in 1912 for Henry C. Stancill and his wife, Amelia.  Henry worked for Guarantee Abstract Company as manager until 1926 when he went to work as a Deputy Clerk for the Manatee County Clerk of Circuit Court.  Their son worked for the Manatee County Tax Collector as a clerk.    

1550 3rd Avenue West: This house was also built in 1912 for Ralph and Mary Johnson.  Ralph was the Vice President of Manatee Title Company until he was elected Manatee County Tax Collector.

1603 3rd Avenue West: This house was built prior to 1916.  John T. and Nettie Campbell owned the house for many years.  John started out as a cashier at the 1st National Bank in 1916 and by 1926 was the bank president.  He served on the first board that helped the United Daughters of the Confederacy to acquire the Gamble Plantation and donate it to the State of Florida.  Despite the depression, he continued to serve at the bank until his death.

Take a right on 16th Street:

201 16th Street: This home, built in the 1920s, eventually housed Grover and Laura Miller.  Grover worked for Gulf Oil.  In the 1940s, Frank T. Anderson, pastor at 1st Baptist Church lived here with his wife, Estell.

112 16th Street: This house was built for Samuel J. Murphy and his wife, Hilda.  Murphy owned Samuel J. Murphy and Company Garage as well as the S.J. Murphy’s Meat and Grocery Store.  In 1921, Robert M. and Florence Beall lived here.  They started the Dollar Limit Store which became known as Bealls Department Store.  

Go right of intersection of 1st and 16th (First Avenue was Marcy Street):

1603 1st Avenue: This house first appears in the 1926 General Directory.  It was the home of Bentham S. and Harriet Richardson.  Born in 1900, Bentham (Ben) came to Bradenton from Columbia, South Carolina with his family at the age of nine.   For a time, he lived in Ellenton where his dad worked in the office the Manatee Refining Company’s fuller’s earth plant.  At eighteen, Ben served as a deputy marshal under Manatee County Sheriff Walter McCall.  When he met and married Harriet Birney, the couple lived in Ellenton for only a short time before moving to Bradenton.  Later, they returned to Ellenton where they purchased a farm.  Ben also served on the School Board and owned Curry, Richardson and Barney Real Estate Company. In 1931, Jesse Brannen of Brannen Ganey Drug Store lived here with his family and in 1947, Wilbur and Grace Smith of Walter Harden Real Estate and the Bradenton Board of Trade lived here.

1609 1st Avenue: In 1914, Louise E. Murbach bought this property from C.B. Clifton.  Louise and her husband, Jacob E. Murbach and their daughter, Elizabeth, were from Elyria, Ohio and wintered in Bradenton.  Jacob was a banker and also had a citrus grove and vegetable farm outside of town.  Elizabeth was very active in crafts and organized the women’s section of the Manatee River Fair for several years.  Jacob died in 1937, and Louise died in 1939.  Louise deeded the house to Elizabeth prior to her death, and the rest of the estate was split between their son, Walter Murbach who lived in Elyria and daughter, Elizabeth, who was married to Charles M. Eaton.  The Eatons continued to live here on Marcy Street.   Charles died in 1949, and Elizabeth continued living here as a widow.  She died in 1971, leaving money in her will for the organ at Manatee Junior College (later called Manatee Community College) and for the Elizabeth Eaton Florida History Room at the Manatee County Central Library. By 1964, the building became an apartment house. It has since been restored.

1707 1st Avenue West: This house was owned by Mary Ellen Reasoner, wife of Henry C. Reasoner of the Oneco Reasoner family and mother of Egbert and Pliny who were the nurserymen who established Royal Palm Nurseries.   Her daughter-in-law, Sarah, (wife of Egbert) purchased a building on Main Street in 1911 and joined it and the building immediately to the south to form the Juplinor Hotel on the second level.  She named it for her children, Julia, Pliney and Norman using the first syllable of each name.  It prospered until the mid twenties.  Later, Sarah’s daughter and Mary Ellen’s granddaughter, Julia Fuller, owned the house.  Julia was married to Walter Fuller, a real estate broker and salesman.  

1717 1st Avenue West: This house was not built until about 1939.  Benjamin and Esther Pope lived here.  He ran Manatee County Grocery Store.

1727 1st Avenue West: This house was built about 1923 for John and Harriet Gleason, retirees from Olean, New York.

Talk about Ware’s Creek:  Ware’s Creek originates about where the DeSoto Mall is today and winds its way through downtown Bradenton before entering the Manatee River here.  The creek was named for Elbridge Ware, who was one of several planters who came to Manatee from Tallahassee after the bank panic of 1838.  Ware married Louisa Ellen Wyatt; the daughter of Colonel William Wyatt organized the group of planters to come to the area.  They built a home on the creek’s west bank near its mouth.  Here, a son, Henry was born during the hurricane of 1846 which destroyed their home and blew all the water out of the Manatee River into Tampa Bay.  Several months after the storm, Ware returned to Tallahassee on business and was persuaded to go to Mexico with General Zachary Taylor.  While there, he caught a fever and died.  In 1853, Louisa remarried Captain Frederick Tresca.  

Turn right on 18th St. N.W. which was once called Bay View Street.

This area became known as Curry’s Point and later, Point Pleasant.  It was named for Henry F. Curry who came to Bradenton in 1882 from Key West.  He was related to the Curry family who came to the Village of Manatee from Key West in 1860.  Henry F. Curry built a log cabin on the point.  His son, Whitney Curry subdivided his estate in 1925, creating Point Pleasant.

117 18th St. N.W.: This house was built in 1927 for William L. and Helen B. Kimball.  Kimball was an attorney.

202 18th St. N.W.: This house was built about 1922.  Beginning in the mid 1920s, it was the home of Dewy Dye, attorney and historian, until sometime in the late 1930s or early 1940s when Dye moved into the house across the street at 203.

203 18th St. N.W.: This house was built about 1925 and was home to several families until it was purchased by Dewey Dye.

213 18th St. N.W.: This house was built about 1926 by John and Edith Reasoner Vanderipe.  Vanderipe was a descendant of the family who pioneered near the Braden River.  In the 1935, census, John listed his occupation as cattleman following in the footsteps of his father, William H. Vanderipe who was the son of John and Nancy Vanderipe, pioneer settlers to the Braden River area.  The family arrived in what became Manatee County in 1843 from Bowling Green, Kentucky.  When John died, Nancy remarried James Cunliff.  He took the family to Key West for a few years until a hurricane forced them to move back to Braden River.  William grew up on the Braden River and helped his family with their farm where they grew guavas, bananas, cassava, sweet potatoes, corn, sugarcane citrus and vegetables.  In 1863, William married Eliza Burts.  William was a cattleman and ranged large herds of cows on the lands around the Braden River.  He was elected to the Manatee County Board of County Commission, but when a storm washed out the Braden River Bridge in September of 1888, William could not cross the Braden River for a special session of the County Commission to discuss the construction of a new bridge.  Determined not to miss the meeting, he swam across the river and walked to Bradenton for the meeting.  It must have been about this time that William decided to build a house in what was known as the Village of Manatee so that he would have better access to the county meetings.  This house is now relocated to the Manatee Village Historical Park where they are doing a fund raising campaign to help to pay for its restoration.  William operated a store in Manatee and was also president of the Bank of Manatee and John grew up helping him in those endeavors.    Edith was sister to Egbert and Pliny Reasoner, daughter of Henry C. and Mary Ellen Reasoner.

216 18th St. N.W.: This house was built about 1925.  Residents included R.W. Bentley who was listed in the 1935 census as a publisher.

224 18th St. N.W.: This house was built by Whitney Curry and his wife, Glen.  Curry was President of the Board of Trade as well as a shareholder in the Curry, Wilson and Curry Insurance firm. Whitney Curry owned the first automobile brought to Manatee County in 1903.  He went with his father to Tampa to purchase the one cylinder Cadillac and brought it back by steamboat.  Later, he owned the first automobile repair garage in Bradenton on the northwest corner of Main Street and Sixth Avenue (Washington Avenue).  He raced cars and won the first race from Bradenton to Tampa driving a Buick.

Turn left on Avenue B (once Sunset Avenue) and go to 17th Street (once known as Curry Avenue)

Point Pleasant Apartments: These apartments were built in 1925.  They once had a view of the river only because the land to the north was a private home and did not take up all the land that the current buildings do.  

109 17th Street N.W.: We believe the house was built about 1926 when it first appears in the city directory as the home of R.B. Hubbell.

103-105 17th Street NW and 1704 1st Street NW: This structure is actually three houses connected together. All three were built about 1925.   On the Sanborn map of 1929, they are showed joined together.

Turn left on 1st Avenue N.W. (once Marcy Street).

1549 1st Avenue N.W.: This house was built about 1939.  It is not in the 1939 city directory, but is on the 1939 Sanborn maps.  In 1945, Charles W. Edwards lived here.  

1535 1st Avenue N.W.: This house was built in 1936 for Belle Stilson, widow of Robert L. Stilson.

1529 1st Avenue N.W.: This house was built in 1913 and has many occupants including J.A. Herrin, Roscoe Scott, C.E. Miller and John Wisdom.

1523 1st Avenue N.W.: Many occupants, J.A. Betts, Rev. W.J. Sanborn and wife, Iva, Lorck Swygert, John Wuin, Rover Mower.

1515 1st Avenue N.W.: Built in 1900 for Ehtlebert D. and Lois Scrogin who owned Bradenton Drug Store.  The foundation of the house is of native stone.

Turn right on 15th Street (Prospect)

104 15th Street West: Built 1913? For Ollie L. Stuart and wife Sue.  Along with H.G. Reed, Ollie owned a general merchandise store called “Reed and Stuart”.   When Dr. J.B. Leffinwell and his son, Jack (who lived on Curry’s Point), decided to open up a telephone company, Ollie offered to host the switchboard at his store. This was the beginning of Standard Telephone Company.  It started with ten phones and quickly grew to a fifty line switchboard, but it was a county service with no outside communication.  Ollie and Jack ran lines along the Western Union Telegraph Company’s poles into Tampa, but they were denied access into the city by the Sheriff of Tampa who said that their company would compete with the one established in the city.  Instead, the two men made an agreement with the telegraph company.  Eventually, the local telephone company was incorporated into the Peninsular Telephone Company which eventually became GTE and then, Verizon as we know it today.  He worked also for Stuart, Vaught, Munch realtors and for a time captained the steamboat, Terra Ceia. He married Sue Hough in 1893.  Sue was born in 1871 and was raised in the Village of Manatee.  She served in the Manatee County School System her entire adult life, and was Superintendent of Schools.  Ollie died in 1936 and his widow continued to live here until her death in 1951.

116 15th Street West: First occupants, George B. and Elizabeth Wallace.  He was with Industrial Loan and Savings of Bradenton.  Lived here until built larger home on river.  Then, S. Frank and Lelan Perkins lived here.  S. Frank was the son of Captain S.F. Perkins who came to Manatee from Birmingham, Alabama.  He leased the manatee Hotel from the Gates’ estate, and then purchased it along with its several hundred feet river frontage.  Perkins imported a pair of Norman horses to pull the hotel’s private carriage that was sent to meet their patrons who arrived by train.  His son, S. Frank Perkins moved into the horseless carriage age with the establishment of the Perkins Motor Garage.  S. Frank Perkins, III became county property appraiser and also lived in this house.

Go south on 15th Street to 4th Ave. and return to the Historical Records Library, 1405 4th Ave. W.