THE ANNA MARIA CITY PIER

Built in 1911, the Anna Maria City Pier welcomed visitors and residents to the island city arriving by steamship. The 776-foot-long pier accommodated paddle wheelers such as the Favorite and the Mistletoe prior to the construction of the first bridge from the mainland in 1922. The pier was commissioned by the Anna Maria Beach Company and was the brainchild of “Will” Bean, whose father homesteaded a large tract of land in 1893, and Charles Roser. Roser is credited by some with having developed the recipe (or baking process) for the famous Fig Newton cookie which he sold c. 1898 to the National Biscuit Company, now Nabisco. Bean and Roser built Anna Maria’s first church and bathhouse in 1913 on the Gulf of Mexico, along with cottages for their families and others. In a building barged down from Parrish, the city’s early promoters handed out flashy brochures of a young lady wearing a short dress, high heels, pearls, and holding a fishing pole reading “Anna Maria Beach, Florida’s Famous Year-round Resort.” Some of the island city’s first buildings survive today on Pine Avenue, a heritage area made possible by the construction of the Anna Maria City Pier over 100 years ago.