Built in 1911, the Anna Maria City Pier welcomed visitors and residents arriving by steamship to the island city. The 776-foot-long pier accommodated paddle wheelers such as the Favorite and the Mistletoe before the first bridge from the mainland was built in 1922. Commissioned by the Anna Maria Beach Company, it was the brainchild of “Will” Bean and Charles Roser. Bean’s father had homesteaded a large tract of land in 1893, and Roser is credited by some with developing the recipe or baking process for the Fig Newton cookie, which he sold circa 1898 to the National Biscuit Company, now Nabisco. In 1913, Bean and Roser built Anna Maria’s first church and bathhouse on the Gulf of Mexico, along with cottages for their families and others. In a building barged down from Parrish, the city’s early promoters distributed flashy brochures showing a young lady in a short dress, high heels, and pearls holding a fishing pole with the words “Anna Maria Beach, Florida’s Famous Year-round Resort.” Some of the island city’s first buildings still survive on Pine Avenue, a heritage area made possible by the construction of the Anna Maria City Pier more than 100 years ago.