Manatee County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 US Census, the population was 399,710. Manatee County is part of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Its county seat and largest city is Bradenton. The county was created in 1855 and named for the Florida manatee, Florida's official marine mammal. Features of Manatee County include access to the southern part of the Tampa Bay estuary, the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, and the Manatee River.
Sarasota County is a county located in Southwest Florida. At the 2020 US census, the population was 434,006. Its county seat is Sarasota and its largest city is North Port. Sarasota County is part of the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota, FL metropolitan statistical area.
Bradenton is a city in and the county seat of Manatee County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 census, the city's population is 55,698, up from 49,546 at the 2010 census. It is a principal city in the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Downtown Bradenton is along the Manatee River and includes the Bradenton Riverwalk. Downtown Bradenton is also home to the Bishop Museum of Science and Nature.
Sarasota is a city in and the county seat of Sarasota County, Florida, United States. It is located in Southwest Florida, the southern end of the Greater Tampa Bay Area, and north of Fort Myers and Punta Gorda. Its official limits include Sarasota Bay and several barrier islands between the bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Sarasota is a principal city of the North Port-Bradenton-Sarasota, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the 2020 U.S. census, Sarasota had a population of 54,842, up from 51,917 at the 2010 census.
The Nature Coast is an informal, unofficial region of the U.S. state of Florida. The broadest definition of the Nature Coast includes the eight counties that abut the Gulf of Mexico along the Big Bend Coast defined by geologists: from west to east, Wakulla, Jefferson, Taylor, Dixie, Levy, Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco counties. The name "Nature Coast" was originally devised as part of a marketing campaign to promote tourism in Levy, Citrus, Hernando, and parts of Marion and Pasco counties.
State College of Florida, Manatee–Sarasota (SCF) is a public college with campuses in the Manatee and Sarasota counties of Florida. Part of the Florida College System, it is designated a "state college" because it offers a greater number of bachelor's degrees than community colleges. SCF is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Founded in 1957 as Manatee Junior College, it was known as Manatee Community College from 1985 to 2009.
The Black Seminoles, or Afro-Seminoles, are an ethnic group of mixed Native American and African origin associated with the Seminole people in Florida and Oklahoma. They are mostly blood descendants of the Seminole people, free Africans, and escaped former slaves, who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida. Many have Seminole lineage, but due to the stigma of having mixed origin, they have all been categorized as slaves or freedmen in the past.
The Sarasota metropolitan area is a metropolitan area located in Southwest Florida. The metropolitan area is defined by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as the North Port–Bradenton–Sarasota Metropolitan Statistical Area, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) consisting of Manatee County and Sarasota County. The principal cities listed by the OMB for the MSA are North Port, Bradenton, Sarasota, Lakewood Ranch, and Venice. At the 2020 census, the MSA had a population of 833,716. The Census Bureau estimates that its population was 891,411 in 2022.
The Old Manatee County Courthouse, built in 1859–1860, is an historic building located at 1404 Manatee Avenue East, in Bradenton, Florida. It was Manatee County's first courthouse and is the oldest surviving Florida county courthouse left in the state, and is now part of the Manatee Village Historical Park. On June 29, 1976, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places. After it ceased being used as a courthouse, it became the Manatee Methodist Church and the Manatee Methodist Church Parsonage.
The Venice Seaboard Air Line Railway Station is a historic former Seaboard Air Line Railroad depot located at 303 East Venice Avenue in Venice, Florida. It is the southern trailhead of the Legacy Trail, which runs along the railroad's former right of way. It currently serves as a hub for bus service operated by Sarasota County Area Transit (SCAT). On August 17, 1989, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Big Bend of Florida, United States, is an informally named geographic region of North Florida where the Florida Panhandle transitions to the Florida Peninsula south and east of Tallahassee. The region is known for its vast woodlands and marshlands and its low population density relative to much of the state. The area is home to the largest single spring in the United States, the Alapaha Rise, and the longest surveyed underwater cave in the United States, the 32-mile (51 km) Wakulla-Leon Sinks cave system.
The Bradenton Carnegie Library is a Carnegie library in Bradenton, Florida. It was founded in 1918, served as Bradenton's main library for 60 years, and now houses the Manatee County Historical Records Library. It was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1987.
This is a list of the National Register of Historic Places listings in Manatee County, Florida.
The following is an alphabetical list of articles related to the U.S. state of Florida.
Myakka City is an unincorporated community in southeastern Manatee County, Florida, United States. It lies along State Road 70 near the city of Bradenton, the county seat of Manatee County. Its elevation is 43 feet (13 m), and it is located at 27°20′59″N82°9′41″W. Although Myakka is unincorporated, it has a post office, with the ZIP code of 34251; the ZCTA for ZIP code 34251 had a population of 6,351 at the 2010 census. up from 4,239 in 2000.
Friends of Seagate Inc. was founded in the late 1980s by Kafi Benz as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Sarasota, Florida. The historic preservation group lead local efforts protect historic property in the Sarasota-Bradenton area from commercial development. The group later expanded its scope to include environmental conservation. Its most notable project was the preservation of Seagate, the former home of Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist Powel Crosley Jr. and his wife, Gwendolyn, and its later owners, Mabel and Freeman Horton. In 2002 the organization tried to secure Rus-in- Ur'be, an undeveloped parcel of land in the center of the Indian Beach Sapphire Shores neighborhood, as a local park; however, as of 2014, real estate developers intend to build condominium units at the site.
Realize Bradenton is a nonprofit organization in Bradenton, Florida responsible for implementing the Cultural Master Plan for downtown Bradenton. It was created in November 2009 with a mission to develop and promote downtown Bradenton by making it a unique and preferred cultural destination for residents and visitors.
Angola was a prosperous community of up to 750 maroons that existed in Florida from 1812 until Florida became a U.S. territory in 1821, at which point it was destroyed. The location was along the Manatee River in Bradenton, Florida, near Manatee Mineral Springs Park. The exact location is expansive, ranging from where the Braden River meets the Manatee River down to Sarasota Bay; archaeological research focuses on the Manatee Mineral Spring—a source of fresh water and later the location of the Village of Manatee two decades after the destruction of the maroon community. Archaeological evidence has been found and the archaeology report by Uzi Baram is on file with the Florida Division of Historical Resources of the Florida Department of State.
Bradenton Riverwalk is a 1.5-mile-long (2.4 km) public green space located along the Manatee River in Bradenton, Florida, between Business US 41 and South Tamiami Trail. The five-acre (2.0 ha) park opened to the public on October 18, 2012 and features a skatepark, 400-seat amphitheater, playgrounds, and a splash pad. The area is maintained by the city of Bradenton and the nonprofit organization Realize Bradenton.
Seagate, also known as the Bay Club, is located along Sarasota Bay in Manatee County, Florida, and was the former winter estate of Powel Crosley Jr., a noted Cincinnati, Ohio, industrialist and entrepreneur. Crosley had the 11,000-square-foot (1,000 m2), Mediterranean Revival-style home built in 1929 for his wife, Gwendolyn, on 45-acre (18-hectare) of land along Sarasota Bay that was platted in 1925 for a failed subdivision. New York architect George Albree Freeman Jr. designed the home; Ivo A. de Minicis, a Tampa, Florida, architect, drafted the plans; and Paul W. Bergmann, a Sarasota contractor, reportedly built the two-and-a-half-story, cast-stone-and-stucco home in 135 days. Gwendolyn Crosley died at Seagate in 1939. After allowing the Army Air Corps to use the home for airmen who were training at a nearby airbase during World War II, Crosley sold the property in 1947. Freeman Horton and his wife, Mabel, bought it the following year. The Horton family lived on the estate from 1948 to 1977. The Campeau Corporation of America acquired the property in the early 1980s, intending to develop it into condominium units and use the residence serving as the development's clubhouse, but its plans failed. The Crosley home and 45 acres of adjacent property were formally added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 21, 1983.
