Manatee County, Florida

Manatee County is a county in the U.S. state of Florida. As of the 2020 U.S. 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.
The area now known as Manatee County had been inhabited by Native Americans for thousands of years. Shell middens and other archaeological digs have been conducted throughout the county including at Terra Ceia and at Perico Island. These digs revealed materials belonging to peoples from the Woodland period.
Some historians have suggested that the southern mouth of the Manatee River was the landing site of the De Soto Expedition.
Due to conflict during the Patriot War and First Seminole War, many Native American and African American refugees fled to the Tampa Bay region of Florida and some settled in modern-day Manatee County. The settlement they founded on the Manatee River was called Angola. By 1819, the population of Angola may have reached as high as 600-700 people.
The Manatee area was opened to settlement in 1842 with the passing of the federal Armed Occupation Act. Early settlements included the Manatee Colony led by Colonel Samuel Reid that numbered thirty-one individuals both black and white. Other prominent early settlers were Joseph and Hector Braden who moved into an area near the Manatee River in 1842. The two had lost their land for their plantations in Northern Florida during the Panic of 1837. They were said to have heard that there was abundant land in the area. The brothers moved into a log cabin five miles north of the mouth of the Manatee River. Four years later Hector drowned while trying to cross the Manatee River on his horse during a hurricane. Despite this tragic event, Joseph decided he would still build the Braden sugar mill at the mouth of the Manatee River and the Braden River. He later built a dock where Main Street was and fortified the area near his house by building a stockade. A few years later in 1851, he built the Braden Castle, which was made out of tabby and served as his residence. In spring of 1856, the fortified home was attacked by Seminole Indians during the Third Seminole War. It later became a popular tourist attraction in the early 1900s with Tin Can Tourists. He would only stay there for the next six years before moving to Tallahassee.
Manatee County was carved out from a vast Hillsborough County in January 1855 and led by Florida Senate President Hamlin V. Snell. The new county covered 5,000 square miles and included all of what are now Charlotte County, DeSoto County, Glades County, Hardee County, Highlands County, Sarasota County, and part of Lee County. The original county seat was Manatee, a village on the southern shore of the Manatee River in what now is eastern Bradenton. In 1866, the county seat was moved from the village of Manatee to Pine Level, as a result of a referendum mandated by the Florida Legislature. In 1887, the county seat was moved again due to the creation of DeSoto County within the existing boundaries. Braiden Town (Bradenton) was selected as the new county seat by referendum of the county residents who mostly resided near the Manatee River. In 1921, Sarasota County was created by the Florida Legislature and further reducing Manatee County to its current boundaries.
Following the Seminole Wars, Manatee County continued to grow both in population and in economic output. Cattle, hogs, and some sheep were raised. Processed sugar and molasses was produced and exported. This agricultural economy, like much of the south, was increasingly becoming reliant on slave labor. A federal census in 1860 showed that the county had a population of 601 white people and 214 enslaved black people. After the outbreak of the American Civil War, Manatee County provided supplies to the Confederate army. Aside from the Union blockade, the Federal army dispatched raiding parties throughout Florida to further limit the Confederate supply chain. For example, in August 1864, the Union schooner USS Stonewall came up the Manatee river on a raid. According to the Florida State Archives, Dr. Braden's sugar works was destroyed during the raid. However, another source states that Braden's property was left untouched.
According to a partial list of soldiers of the Confederate States of America, the county also sent at least 100 of its citizens to fight. Some of the men from Manatee would be recruited to the 7th Florida Infantry Regiment, which fought as part of the Army of Tennessee.
Within Manatee County is the Gamble Plantation, a sugar plantation and home of Major Robert Gamble. According to some, following the Civil War, the Confederate Secretary of State, Judah P. Benjamin, took refuge at the mansion before escaping to England.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 893 square miles (2,310 km), of which 743 square miles (1,920 km) is land and 150 square miles (390 km) (17%) is water.
As of the 2020 United States census, there were 399,710 people, 150,345 households, and 99,157 families residing in the county. By age, the population was spread out as such: 4.6% under 5 years old, 18.0% under 18 years old, and 28.1% 65 years and over. 51.7% of the population was female.
The median income for a household in the county was $59,963 in 2020 dollars and a per capita income in the past 12 months of $35,146. There was a reported 10.9% of the population living in poverty.
Bealls of Florida has its headquarters and was founded 1915 in unincorporated Manatee County.
Tropicana was founded in Manatee County in the 1950s. Tropicana was bought by PepsiCo in 2001. PepsiCo sold Tropicana to a French private equity firm in 2021.
The Manatee County Public Library System offers a collection of adult, young adult, and children's materials, as well as a genealogy section and a local history collection in the form of the Eaton Florida History Reading Room. Public computers are available at all library locations. The library also has a digital collection that includes e-books through OverDrive, Inc. and Libby; television shows, movies and more e-books through Hoopla; and magazines through Flipster; and local images and documents from the late nineteenth century to the early 1980s.[1]
The libraries also offer author luncheons, children's story times, summer reading programs, job fairs, and book discussion groups.
The library system serves the county in seven locations:
In September 2021, a seventh branch was approved by county commissioners, to be built in Lakewood Ranch. The library's grand opening was on January 12, 2024.
Library cards are free to those who reside, own property, attend school, or work in Manatee County. Non-residents may obtain a temporary card upon payment of a $25.00 annual fee.
Manatee County participates in the Little Free Library program. There are several Little Free Libraries at parks and other public places around the county.
Manatee County's first public library was a privately owned rental library created by Julia Fuller at the Mrs. Bass Dry Goods store in 1898. The county's first independent library opened in Bradenton in 1907, followed a Carnegie Library in Palmetto in 1914 and another in Bradenton in 1918. For much of the twentieth century, both cities' libraries were free to city residents while county residents had to pay a non-resident fee. In 1964, the Bradenton and Palmetto library associations merged with the Manatee County government to create the Manatee County Public Library System. This was followed by the establishment of a bookmobile for rural areas in 1964 and a Talking Books program for the blind in 1966.
As demands on the bookmobile grew and the library collection outstripped the existing buildings in Bradenton and Palmetto, the first branch of the Manatee County Public Library system was built in Bayshore in 1967, followed by a new branch on East Ninth Street in 1969 and an Island branch in 1971, the last of which was moved into a new building in 1983. A new building for the Palmetto Library was built in 1969, followed by the modern Central Public Library in downtown Bradenton in 1978.
The 1990s saw a period of rapid growth in Manatee County and the library system grew accordingly, with the Braden River, Rocky Bluff, and South Manatee branches opening in 1991, 1994, and 1998, respectively. The Braden River branch moved to a new building in 1997. The Rocky Bluff location would be moved to a larger location, featuring a built in café, in 2011. The new location is still physically within Ellenton. The additions as well as investment into various technologies such as modern computers, a 3-D Printing Lab, as well as new loanable items, brings Manatee County Libraries to its modern services.
Reciprocal borrowing began in 2000 between Manatee and Sarasota County Libraries, which would be followed by statewide reciprocal borrowing programs. Starting in 2017, the Manatee County library system began offering items including musical instruments, tools, telescopes, binoculars, cake pans, hotspots, and museum passes. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, the library system began offering WiFi hotspots to patrons in order to provide internet service remotely to work safely and at home. This began in Spring of 2020.
On December 15, 2021, the county broke ground for a new East County library, which was to serve the community of Lakewood Ranch. The new library was scheduled to open mid-2023. The new library, dubbed the Lakewood Ranch Library, had its grand opening on January 12, 2024.
Manatee County has a county transportation service, MCAT. It serves this county, Pinellas County, and Sarasota County.
Manatee County is part of the strongly Republican Sun Belt. The area became a Republican stronghold following World War II and has remained so since: the last Democrat to win Manatee County was Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1944.
During the peak of the Socialist Party's prominence in the early 20th century, Manatee County would elect the only socialist to the state legislature, Andrew Jackson Pettigrew to the Florida House of Representatives in 1906 for one term defeating John A. Graham (who was a Democrat) in the general election. As a state legislator he would make several proposals that were inline with what the Party reflected at the national level such as making US Senators popularly elected and creating a national income tax. Overall as a state legislator he would make little progress in getting legislation proposed by him passed. Prior to the 1906 race he would run in 1904 for the same position unsuccessfully losing to A.T. Cornwell (also a Democrat) who had served as Bradenton's first mayor and in a variety of positions at the county level. Pettigrew would later go on to run for governor in 1908 and Secretary of Agriculture in 1912 being unsuccessful in both races.
In 1970, Governor Claude R. Kirk Jr. fired Manatee County's superintendent along with the entire school board and appointed himself in their place in an attempt to end desegregation busing. This situation would last from April 6 to 13 before Kirk left his position as the superintendent.
Unincorporated Manatee County is served by the Manatee County Sheriff's Office.
Manatee County is a part of the Twelfth Circuit Court of Florida.
Manatee County is part of the Second District of Appeals.
The Board of Commissioners includes the following:
Information as of March 12, 2024.