MANATEE MINERAL SPRING

Here flowed a spring which had been used by Indians and was found by Manatee's first white settler, Josiah Gates, who settled nearby in January 1842. It served Branch Fort, when the early settlers camped nearby for protection from the Seminole raid of 1856. During this encampment, the first child born (March 4, 1856) was Furman Chairs Whitaker, who became Manatee County's first native born doctor, practicing here from 1896, until shortly before his death in 1945. In the early 1900's the spring became the center of a small park which included a picnic pavilion.