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Parks
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Location: Siesta Drive and Higel Street |
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Harry Higel was a leader in the early development of the Sarasota
area. Born in Philadelphia, he came to Horse and Chaise (now
Venice) with his parents in 1884 and later moved to Sarasota.
In the 1890's, he bought the Sarasota town dock and engaged
in real estate, merchandising and shipping. In 1896 he married
Gertrude Edmonson, granddaughter of Sarasota pioneers and daughter
of Louise Whitaker and Thomas Gordon Edmondson, who in 1881
homesteaded 80 acres on the northern tip of Sarasota Key. Higel
supported efforts to incorporate Sarasota as a town. He was
elected to the first town council in 1902, was re-elected four
times and was mayor in 1913 when Sarasota was incorporated as
a city. He served again as Mayor in 1916 and 1917. Higel's imposing
hotel, Higelhurst, adjoining his bathhouses on the Pass, burned
in 1917 just prior to completion of the first automobile bridge
to Siesta. In 1921, the year Sarasota County was created,
Harry Higel was found brutally beaten on the island, the victim
of an unsolved murder.
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