HISTORIC SPANISH POINT – 337 N Tamiami Trl., Osprey, FL 34229 –
941-966-5214 
historicspanishpoint.org
Q-Tips & our long time Chicago friends had: We had a good time & walk at the Spanish Point. After we had dinner at Rosebud.
A great place to visit for a few hours or the day. You will learn about some of the history of Florida and how Bertha Potter Palmer made Florida famous. The butterfly exhibit is awesome.
Experience Mrs. Potter Palmer’s Jungle Walk, lush Sunken Garden, and the Butterfly Garden, one of the largest on the Gulf Coast. At Guptill Boat Yard, enjoy maritime tales.
Explore all 30 acres of this beautiful outdoor museum, they close the site gates promptly at 5:00 p.m. Generally, it is recommended to allow a full two hours for your visit. Wear comfortable walking shoes and appropriate clothing and suggest you wear sunscreen. Strollers and wheelchairs are welcome, keep in mind that some of the paths are made of crushed shell, so sturdy wheels are advised. (Call ahead to 941-966-5214 x210 to request one of the two wheelchairs, if you need one.) Historic Spanish Point is a smoke-free environment. Pets are not allowed except for service dogs or on Pups at the Point days. Please keep to the designated paths. Picnic tables are available, so bring a lunch or snack! Because Historic Spanish Point is an environmental museum as well as an archaeological site, we invite you to take many photos and leave only footprints.
TOURS: Docent-Guided Tours (no additional charge) if you take the boat tour, there is an extra fee. Allow at least two hours for a tour and call ahead to 941-966-5214 x210 on the day you plan to visit for departure times.
Self-Guided Exploration – Brochure-map, available at the Visitors Center, makes self touring easy. There is a lot to see and do here; explore at your own pace!
Continuous-Loop Trams Docent-Guided Tram Tours – For visitors who can’t easily walk the mile-long tour, a tram tour is available by advance reservation. There is still some moderate walking involved, and passengers will want to climb on and off at certain points of the tour as appropriate. (The tram tour is not recommended for people in wheelchairs. The paths can accommodate most sturdy wheelchairs and electric carts.) Tram tours (each for up to seven guests per tram, seats available on a first come, first served basis) must be reserved at least two days in advance so we may schedule a volunteer Docent-tram driver. Please call 941-966-5214 x260 for reservations.
Docent-Guided Group Tours – Available by previous arrangement for groups of 15 or more at a discounted rate. Trams are available. For more information, please call: 941-966-5214 x260.
The Palmers and the Webbs and the history of Spanish Point
The Palmer name is ubiquitous in Sarasota County. Everywhere you look, there are streets, parks and subdivisions named after the wealthy Chicago family who came here in 1910 to develop this lush subtropical paradise on the Gulf Coast into housing, ranches and citrus groves.
The matriarch of the Palmer clan, socialite Bertha Honore Palmer, was the widow of Potter Palmer, prominent Chicago real estate developer and co-founder of Marshall Field and Company.
Eight years after her husband’s death, Bertha Palmer purchased more than 80,000 acres of land around Sarasota, including 30 acres belonging to Florida pioneers John and Eliza Webb, who had established a farm on the site in 1867 and named it Spanish Point.
The name was derived not from Spanish explorers, as you might expect, but rather after a Spanish trader the Webbs had met in Key West while looking for a homestead to settle in Florida.
The trader told them of an idyllic coastal location that rose high above what is now Little Sarasota Bay.
The Webb family farmed the land for more than 40 years before it was purchased by Bertha Palmer in 1910.
Between 1959 and 1962, scientists started digging around Spanish Point, excavating burial mounds and shell middens, a landfill of sorts for domestic discards. There are shell middens all over Florida, but this is the only one that was cut in half, enclosed in glass and put on public display.
This “Window To The Past” is enclosed within the walls of a small museum where ancient history is exposed in words and pictures. And then you look through the glass and imagine what life was like thousands of years ago.
Bertha Palmer selected the Webb farm as the anchor of her 350-acre winter estate, where she could live while overseeing the development of her other lands in Sarasota County.
She left largely intact the shell middens and burial mounds on the property, as well as the Webb homestead, outbuildings buildings and chapel, while building her own home and gardens on a ridge above the bay.
Palmer developed the gardens in keeping with the layout of the original homestead, incorporating the farms buildings into a tropical landscape punctuated by pergolas, classic Greek columns, lawns and flower gardens.
An early aqueduct that transported water for the Webb homestead and farmlands can still be seen among the rich foliage and flowers that Palmer added to the property, which she called Osprey Point.
Bertha Palmer’s Sunken Garden at Historic Spanish Point.
