In May 1894, George Emerson Bean, Anna Maria Island's first modern-day pioneer, took up a homestead signed by President Wm. McKinley that embraced the island's entire north point. Other settlers, including Samuel C. Cobb and John R. Jones, came shortly after and cleared the island's dense jungle to build homes. In 1913, George W. Bean, son of Anna Maria's first pioneer, founded the Anna Maria Development Company, opening the island to expansion as a summer and winter resort and as a year round home for growing numbers of residents from almost every state of the union. The earliest known dwellers of Anna Maria Island were Indians of the Timucuan Tribe, whose burial mounds filled with tribal artifacts were found years later. According to tradition, Ponce de Leon visited this key in 1513, when it was joined to what is now Longboat Key, and in honor of his sponsor King Charles II gave the island his queen's name. In 1539, Hernando DeSoto is said to have made his first New World landing near here, replenished his ships' water casks, passed around Anna Maria's north point, and sailed to the Manatee River to launch his historic expedition to the Mississippi River.