Ted Sperling Park at South Lido Beach

Översikt

South Lido Beach is located at the southern tip of Lido Key. It offers an exceptional beach experience, picturesque views, picnic tables and a playground.

This park provide unique opportunities for visitors to enjoy natural Florida beaches. They are contiguous sections of a 100-acre property that interacts with four bodies of water; the Gulf of Mexico, Big Pass, Sarasota Bay and Brushy Bayou. Because of their convergence, currents run swift in some areas of the shoreline. This area is posted NO SWIMMING.

During the 19th century, what is now Lido Key consisted of a series of islands separated by shifting channels.

An early immigrant pioneer, Otto Schmidt Zoldan, settled on the islands around the turn of the century and acquired the properties in 1910 under the terms of the Homestead Act. Zoldan later sold his property which, after a series of land transfers, was purchased by John Ringling during the early 1920's.

Ringling planned an ambitious development of his island properties, greatly manipulating the shapes of the islands through moving millions of cubic feet of sand.
Because of his interest in Italian culture, Ringling named one of the newly created islands after the Italian word for beach, "lido."

The great Florida Land bust of 1926, however, led to the collapse of the Ringling Isles project and the temporary abandonment of development plans for the southern part of Lido Key.
Spurred by a growing environmental awareness, the public overwhelmingly approved a referendum authorizing the county's purchase of the 100-acre parcel for use as a recreational area and public open space.

Visit Green Sarasota
updated 06/2016 by Sarasota County Green Map