Two factors were key to Sarasota’s success as a summer destination: air conditioning and mosquito control.

We take both for granted today as we leave our air-conditioned homes and take our air-conditioned cars to our air-conditioned destinations.

It was not always so. Few cars or homes or businesses were blessed with manufactured coolness, even into the 1950s.

Today, every car comes standard with a full range of options, air of course included. In the 1950s autos were sold ala carte. Extra for the radio, extra for automatic transmission, extra for whitewall tires, and of course, extra for air-conditioning – if it was even offered. The best you could hope for to cool down on the road was whatever air was directed your way by the “butterfly” windows which cranked opened to funnel it toward your sweating brow.

Even though the Northern press printed scurrilous stories that Sarasota’s sunny clime was less than comfortable during the summertime, most Sarasotans knew that it didn’t get that hot here – not all THAT hot.

The locals referred to their hometown as the “air-conditioned city,” fanned by gentle Gulf and bay breezes. For us, the hottest day in August was preferable to any October, November, December, January, February and most of March above the Mason-Dixon Line.

In the mid-50s, the weather battle really heated up. Our ever-active chamber of commerce, seeking to entice more summer tourists, felt duty-bound to debunk the slander that Florida got hot. An article in The News proclaimed, “Records prove that while temperatures soar over the Nation, it’s comfortable here.” The News advised readers to “Beat the Heat! Stay in Air-Conditioned Sarasota where it’s C-O-O-L.” The paper reported that while New Yorkers were suffering sunstrokes and Washington was blistering through 98-degree days, we were “enjoying a temperate 87 degrees.”

In his 1955, Sarasota Visitors’ Guide, Roger Flory laid out the facts: “Summer nights are particularly cool! The reason is that either the evening is cooled by refreshing afternoon thundershowers, or fresh sea breezes from the Gulf of Mexico descend over Sarasota with a cooling sensation that is so inviting to a good night of sleep in the summertime.”

Then the Florida State Chamber of Commerce jumped into the fray, announcing that it was going to invest heavily in “breaking down the fallacy that it is hot here in the summer.”

As Florida promoters trumpeted to battle, those who actually lived through the summers here availed themselves of time-tested ways to beat the, uh, warm. Shirt sleeves were worn instead of suits, and during the slow-paced summer months, casually dressed businesspeople often took a long mid-afternoon break on the Ringling Bridge, casting for fish, drinking a cool one and enjoying the breeze.

Downtown, overhangs provided shade along the sidewalks, as did the giant Memorial Oaks that lined Main Street east from Orange Avenue. Ladies often carried parasols, and hand-held fans were common. Businesses as well as homes left front and rear doors open for cross-ventilation, while ceiling fans stirred the breeze and table fans whizzed back and forth.

In the ’30s, an announcement for a popularity contest and dance at the Mira-Mar Auditorium noted that guests would be “cooled with electric fans and tons of natural ice.” (Electric fans were called “a portable breeze.”)

But the great equalizer was air conditioning. At the beginning of 1940, Walgreen’s Bay Drugs announced that along with modern fluorescent lighting, its building would be outfitted with a unit “especially designed for Florida’s mild climate.” Other businesses followed suit, but not as quickly as one might suppose. While Walgreen’s had been designed with air conditioning in mind, existing businesses and homes were not. As late as 1956, the developer of Bay Shore described the seven essentials of the perfect Florida house; these included a screened porch and sliding glass doors, but not air conditioning.

For most buildings, the conversion began with window units. The J.H. Cobb company advertised that one could “stop sweltering and start relaxing” with its Frigidaire unit, which provided “Mountain Crisp comfort all summer long.”

As more and more merchants brought in air, doors were shut to keep the coolness inside. Window stickers were posted to let passers-by know that business was open – and C-O-O-L.

Our comfort zone soon became dependent on manufactured coolness. It was everywhere: shops, offices, cars, churches, finally even schools. The thought of not having it at home, too, became intolerable, especially after Gulf and bay breezes were blocked along the shoreline by high-rise condominiums.

Today, the thought of not having air conditioning is akin to not having electricity. And while screened porches and sliding doors are still desirable in the Florida home, it is central air that has become essential. We really have become the air-conditioned city.

As for the mosquitoes, WOW! What a menace they were in days gone by. Today we can grill in our backyards in the evening and not be set upon by hordes of whining insects, bent on needling us and flying off with our blood.

Very early on, however, particularly during the long rainy season, mosquitoes were dreaded as a threat to human and animal life.

Pioneer settler Anton Kleinoscheg lamented, “You can imagine that I look with rather unfriendly eyes at the clouded sky which constantly sends down the water masses ... and generate millions of these beasts. They have in fact killed two of my young dogs (a horrible end).”

According to J.B. Privett, who owned Privett’s Drugstore, in the 1920s the city collected crank case oil from filling stations. A quantity of the fluid was poured into open sewers, causing a film that kept mosquito larvae from hatching. Privett also recalled that filling a sock full of sawdust soaked in grease and sinking it in a flooded area would keep mosquitoes out of an area for almost the entire summer.

June 21, 1926, was the beginning of “clean up week” in Sarasota, a campaign by every householder to join to rid the entire district of mosquitoes. Dr. John R. Scully, the city and county health commissioner used the slogan, “Death to the Mosquito,” as a rallying cry to get rid of them, “whatever their size, color or breed.” They missed a few.

The first uniformed soldiers enlisted in what essentially was the “Mosquito War” were local Boy Scouts, who patrolled the city, collecting cans and rubbish that might otherwise fill with water and offer a place to hatch.

Theatre ushers (they wore uniforms, too) sprayed at the feet of movie-goers at the Edwards Theatre (today’s Sarasota Opera House) to keep the swatting to a minimum during show time.

The war was obviously being won by the mosquito. Each season, black clouds of humming skeeters swarmed through Sarasota like Sherman through Georgia. Natives who had never known the possibility of pleasant outdoor life during summer evenings tolerated the situation, but the Chamber of Commerce knew it was preventing summer tourism and long-term growth.

Enter J. Melton Williams. He would be to Sarasota’s mosquitoes what Patton was to the Nazis. Appointed Director of Mosquito Control in December of 1945, he would wage an unrelenting campaign. It could be argued that as much as any individual, he turned Sarasota into a year-round resort.

His arsenal contained four specialty equipped planes; locals called the flights “Operation Mosquito” and the “Dawn Patrol,” and fogger jeeps spewing out DDT.

There were setbacks on the way to victory. A headline in the late 1940s in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported, “Mosquitos win over DDT. Planes Grounded.” In June of 1948, the Herald warned, “Mansonia mosquito defies ordinary measures.”

Williams persevered, increasing the strength of the DDT. Chlordane and later malathion were added to the arsenal, routinely bathing not only mosquitoes but the children who would appear at the first sound of the fogger and run in thick clouds of spray behind the jeeps.

Insecticides were part of everyday life. Every excursion to the drive-in required Pic, a coil that would be lit and burn atop the dashboard throughout the movie, as necessary to a good time there as the back seat.

Williams urged every citizen to become a soldier, serving the war effort by keeping lawns mowed, picking up empty containers and spraying around the house.

The people of Sarasota responded enthusiastically; they knew whom to thank for their newfound, evening freedom. Letters of thanks to Williams frequently appeared in the newspaper. This one from Douglas Graham in the ’50s was typical: “Mr. Williams has done a remarkably fine job for this city; we should give him high praise for his work.”

So for the summer tourist: “Welcome to The Air Conditioned City, We’re Mosquito Free – Almost.”