hours and 10 minutes in total. Reasons for supporting incorporation included that Longboat Key could have more say in its governmental affairs. It is also believed that the placement of a segregated beach for African-Americans on the island was a motivator behind incorporating. By incorporating the entire key, they could somehow avoid the placement of the beach altogether. Residents also held meetings protesting the beach's placement. Significant arguments against incorporation were that property taxes would go up. After doing the incorporation vote, Will LePage was elected as the first mayor, along with the first eight members of the Board of Aldermen. At the time, only about a third of Longboat Key was developed, and roughly 215 people lived on the key. When the town was incorporated, it changed its name from Longbeach to Longboat Key. In 1959 the Arvida Corporation created by Arthur Vining Davis purchased 2,000 acres, which included the southern half of Longboat Key, a majority of Lido Key, along with Bird, Otter and Coon Keys, at a price of $13.5 million. It was expected that the population would be increased by 12,000 extra residents. Some of the land purchased would come from John Ringling North, and on his Longboat Key land included the unfinished Ritz-Carlton Hotel. There was a proposal in 1962 by a Sarasota realtor to finish its construction and make it into a convention site for Sarasota. However, Arvida had no interest in either selling or attempting to finish the hotel. The hotel was torn down between December 1963 and January 1964. Debris from the demolished hotel would be used as fill for the city's civic center and City Island. President George W. Bush arrived on Longboat Key on September 10, 2001, the day before the September 11 attacks, to read to second graders in a campaign at the Emma E. Booker School in Sarasota. Government The town of Longboat Key has a commission-manager form of government. The United States Postal Service operates a post office on Longboat Key, with the entire island having the ZIP code of 34228. The post office was established on October 10, 1907, as "Longbeach", and was located in the community of that name on the north end of the key. On February 1, 1958, the name of the Longbeach post office was changed to Longboat Key. There was also a post office named "Longboat" established on March 27, 1914,