Fruitville is a census-designated place (CDP) in Sarasota County, Florida, United States. The population was 15,484 at the 2020 census. It is part of the North Port–Sarasota–Bradenton Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The area that is Fruitville was mostly a sawgrass swamp when European pioneers began to settle the area. This marshland was home to wild cattle but, according to one source, those cattle didn't do well due to a lack of minerals in the foliage they grazed from. This swampland was eventually drained to make the land more suitable for farming. In the late 1870s, a new wave of pioneers began to settle in Florida thanks to a growing orange industry. In 1876, a man by the name of Charles Reaves settled in what is now considered Fruitville. According to some sources, he was the one who named the area Fruitville after the abundance of fruit in the area. Reaves would go on to become the postmaster for the area's 115 residents. The first church in Sarasota County was the Friendship Baptist Church. The church was chartered in 1875 and a small pine log structure was used for the congregation until a new church was erected in 1876, using some of the original lumber from the first church. In 1887, the Florida Mortgage and Investment Company of Scotland donated land to the church for the establishment of the community's first cemetery. Also in 1887, Charles and his wife Martha Tatum Reaves converted their corncrib into Fruitville's first school for their three children and seven neighbors. They went on to hire Miss Josie Clower as the first teacher in the area. After citizens petitioned for a modern school building, funding was granted from the Works Progress Administration to build Fruitville Elementary in 1941. Rural schools in the nearby villages of Tatum Ridge and Old Myakka were closed, with their students bussed to the new school in Fruitville. A map from 1902 shows Fruitville on the map as a community. In May 1918, Franklin Field (named after then-mayor George Franklin) began operating as a military airfield during . The Franklin airfield was located north of Fruitville Road and east of what is now Tuttle road. The airfield was an auxiliary landing station for the U.S. Army Air Service and housed, at the least, several Curtiss JN "Jenny" planes. With the war over, the airfield saw less and less traffic and was likely