Bradenton, Florida
Bradenton is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, United States. Its population was 55,698 at the 2020 census. It is a principal city in the Sarasota metropolitan area.
Downtown Bradenton is along the Manatee River and includes the Bradenton Riverwalk and Bishop Museum of Science and Nature. To the south of Bradenton is Sarasota; beach communities on Anna Maria Island are to its west, and the Manatee River and Palmetto are to its north.
History
Late 18th and early 19th centuries
A settlement established by Maroons or escaped slaves named Angola existed in Bradenton's present area starting in the late 1700s and ending in 1821. It is believed to been spread out between the Manatee River all the way to Sarasota Bay. The community is estimated to have had 600–750 residents. Angola was a rather large Maroon settlement as the Manatee River at that time was too shallow for US Navy vessels to navigate. The settlement was abandoned after the Creeks, who were aligned with Andrew Jackson, attacked Angola.When the United States annexed Florida in 1821, two known claimants of land were in the vicinity of Bradenton, but neither of them was confirmed by the US federal government.
Mid- and late 19th century
Josiah Gates along with his family and eight slaves moved to the area where present-day Bradenton exists in January 1842 after being attracted to the area for its natural beauty. Gates thought the area would be a popular place for new settlers because it was near Fort Brooke, and he also figured that while they were building their homes, they would need a place to stay temporarily. He built his home near present-day 15th Street East and his inn at another location, naming it Gates House. Gates is also credited as being the first known American settler in present-day Manatee County.Bradenton is named after Dr. Joseph Braden, whose nearby fort-like house was a refuge for early settlers during the Seminole Wars. Braden owned a sugar plantation in the area, covering and being worked by slave labor. Dr. Joseph Braden was originally from Virginia and relocated to Leon County in Florida shortly after its annexation by the United States in 1821, where he established a cotton plantation and brought his Virginia slaves along with him. After having financial difficulties from the Panic of 1837, he tried to re-establish himself financially in Manatee County in 1843 moving to the area along with his slaves. To help with the shipment of sugar grown at the plantation, he constructed a pier in present-day downtown Bradenton, where ships could dock at and pick up sugar. Where the pier met the land, he constructed a stockade with the name of Fort Braden. During the Third Seminole War, on April 6, 1856, Braden's fortified home was attacked by several Seminole Indians, one of the few, albeit small, direct engagements of the war. Braden was financially successful with his plantation, but ended up moving back to Leon County in 1857 because of the financial panic that occurred that year.
Major Alden Joseph Adams purchased 400 acres of land in 1876 between present-day Manatee Memorial Hospital and 9th Street East and build his home there in 1882. He named his three-story concrete home Villa Zanza. Alden was known for having many animals and a large amount of foliage at his home. At one point, he owned over 300,000 acres of land in Manatee County. Adams served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and eventually reached the rank of major. After the war, he served in the US Secret Service and later as a newspaper correspondent for the New York Herald. He reported from Paris during the time when the Paris Commune existed. At one point, he was asked to look for Dr. David Livingstone, but declined and suggested that Henry Morton Stanley should look for him, instead. Adams died in 1915, and his home was bought in 1924 with the intent of remodeling it, but it was not completed, and his home was demolished at some point in the late 1920s.
William I. Turner bought 7 acres from John Crews Pelot in 1877 and create a subdivision from that land creating what is now Bradenton. The land itself was plotted by Axel Emil Broberg, and it contained 19 plots on both sides of what is now 12th Street West along with a cross street that is currently 3rd Avenue. Turner sold the lots, building a store and a warehouse along with his own home.
The town was originally spelled "Braidentown", as a spelling error was made when it applied for a post office on May 9, 1878. The first bridge across Wares Creek was built in 1886. The following year, Bradenton was designated the county seat after DeSoto County was formed from eastern Manatee County, as the then-county seat, Pine Level, was in the new county. A county courthouse was built in 1890 at Courthouse Square.
20th century
First half of the 20th century
Railroad service was extended from Palmetto across the Manatee River to Bradenton in 1902. Bradenton was incorporated on May 19, 1903, with 59 voting in favor of incorporating and 34 voting against it. Shortly after incorporation, a local election was held to choose the city's first elected municipal officials. A.T Cornwell was elected as mayor, Robert H. Roesch as clerk and tax assessor, A.B. Murphy as treasurer, and F. Dryman as tax collector along with seven city council members. One of the earliest moves made by the municipal government was amending the name to "Bradentown". However, the name change was not reflected with the US Postal Service until 1905. On December 29, a streetcar line began operation going from Bradenton to the neighboring city of Manatee and went west crossing Wares Creek to the nearby community of Fogartyville. The company operating the line had financial difficulties, likely due to a lack of ridership, and cancelled the line in 1906. The Manavista Hotel was opened in January 1907 bordering the Manatee River on Main Street.The Davis Bridge, the first general-traffic bridge across the Manatee River, was opened in June 1910. This wooden toll bridge, built by C.H. Davis, had one lane and passing spots. The bridge went from present-day 9th Street East to near where the Atwood Grapefruit Groves were located at west of Ellenton. In 1912, the first road, Range Road leading from present-day Bradenton to Sarasota, was built. Also during that year, the original county courthouse was bought and moved to a new location, becoming a grade school for black students in the area, Lincoln Academy Grammar School. A new courthouse was built on the site of the old one in the following year, 1913, which still stands today. The Victory Bridge, opened in August 1919, runs from current 10th Street West in Bradenton to 8th Avenue in Palmetto. Funding for the bridge came from bond issues by both Bradenton and Palmetto. The bridge itself had two lanes and was made of wood. Its name came from the United States' recent victory in World War I against the Central Powers. With the Victory Bridge's construction, the municipal government of Manatee attempted to buy Davis Bridge and make it public as a way to compete with Bradenton's Victory Bridge, but the deal never went through. The rest of the bridge ended up being dismantled with the exception of its draw section, which was sold to county government and put into use for the Snead Island's Cutoff bridge in 1920.
1920s and 1930s
Baseball spring training began in Bradenton with the construction of Ninth Street Park in 1923. The first team to train in the city was the St. Louis Cardinals, doing so for 1923 and 1924. The city council began the process of removing the "w" letter from its then name "Bradentown" in January 1925 and completed it on May 2, 1925, when the governor signed a bill relating to it, making it official. All streets in the city were renamed in 1926 with a numbering system.After the collapse of the Florida land boom and the Great Depression starting, the city faced an economic downturn. Along with an economic downturn, the city had financial issues as well with the city going into debt. During the Florida land boom, Bradenton borrowed money as a way to pay for infrastructure to areas that were considered outlying. As a result, the city retracted its municipal boundaries so it could not provide services to those areas and defaulted their municipal bonds as a result. After the municipal boundaries were retracted, the bonds were refunded, and residents who lived in the new boundaries would be responsible for paying it. Bradenton ended up eventually getting its bonds paid off. Despite the economic downtown, several new projects were done in the city. A municipal pier was built in 1927 with a building at its end. The pier itself still stands and the building at its end has served a variety of functions ever since. As the Victory Bridge was deemed too unsafe to use after a hurricane hit it in 1926, the Green Bridge was built the following year in 1927 as a replacement to it. In the meantime, a ferry operated until the Green Bridge was built. On July 22, 1931, a joint committee was appointed by the municipal city councils of Bradenton, Manatee, and Palmetto to consider and possibly even merge the three cities, but nothing came out of the committee in the end. A new post office building in 1937 was built on Manatee Avenue and 9th Street West as a Works Progress Administration project. The post office is still in operation.
Compiled in the late 1930s and first published in 1939, the Florida guide listed Bradenton's population as being 5,986 and described it as: