Harry Higel and his partners owned, platted, and managed the town of Siesta, eighty acres on the north end of what was then Sarasota Key. They built the Yacht Club and dredged canals. Higel applied for the Siesta Post Office, was appointed postmaster, and built the post office on the pier. He erected the Higelhurst Hotel, with a dining room to seat 150 people. The Higelhurst had gas and electric lights. Rates were $2.50 a day. Less than two months before the
bridge to Sarasota Key was completed, fire destroyed the hotel.
Higel came in the 1890s to Sarasota. He bought the dock at the end of Main Street and was the local agent for John Savarese's Tampa steamship line. Later he bought a steamer, "The Vandalia." He installed tanks of gasoline and kerosene on the pier and was the local agent for Gulf Oil. Higel worked to bring a telephone line to Sarasota. In 1899 Sarasota had two phones, one in Higel's office and another in the post office. He owned a store and three of the five lots at Five Points. Writer Pete Schmidt later described him as "a workaholic who could do most anything."
In 1902, after successfully working to have Sarasota incorporated, Higel was on its first town council. He was elected mayor for three terms. Under his administration, in 1917, the city reduced its debt by $5000 and curtailed expenses. The city purchased the Hover Arcade at the foot of Main Street and part of it became City Hall.
At his death in 1921, Higel was director of both the Bank of Sarasota and the Seaboard Air Line Railway. After he was bludgeoned to death, only the H.H. on his signet ring identified Higel as the victim. No one was ever convicted of his murder.