History of Tampa, Florida

This period saw the first Gasparilla Pirate Festival, pioneering aviator Tony Jannus captaining the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, the world's first commercial passenger airline, and the rise of organized crime as a major factor locally.

However, the Tampa Bay area did have a few residents: Indians and Cuban fishermen who lived in a seasonal encampment at the mouth of Spanish Town Creek, a freshwater stream that once ran through today's Hyde Park neighborhood to Bayshore Boulevard.

A handful of these people may have stayed year round, but the majority spent a few months catching and smoking fish (especially mullet) from the teeming waters of the bay, then returned to sell them in Cuba.

[16][17] In 1823, the United States imposed upon the leaders of the Seminoles to sign the Treaty of Moultrie Creek, which created a large Indian reservation in the interior of peninsular Florida.

Colonel Brooke, the outpost's first commander, directed his troops to clear the area for the construction of a wooden fort and support buildings, but ordered that several ancient live oak trees inside the encampment be spared to provide shade and cheer.

[12] A few settlers established homesteads near the palisade, but growth was very slow due to difficult pioneer conditions and the constant fear of attack from the Seminole population, some of whom lived nearby in an uneasy truce.

The City Marshall's duties and responsibilities eventually expanded to include summoning members of patrol by midnight along with examining and recording marks and brands on butchered cattle.

[29] In late 1861, the Union navy set up a blockade near the mouth of Tampa Bay as part of the overall Anaconda Plan, which sought to squeeze the Confederacy off from outside sources of money and supplies.

[30] Most notable among these was former Tampa mayor James McKay Sr., who delivered Florida cattle and citrus to Spanish Cuba in exchange for gold and supplies before being captured and imprisoned by Union forces.

The Union forces headed a few miles up the Hillsborough River until they found McKay's hidden blockade runners Scottish Chief and Kate Dale near present-day Lowry Park Zoo and burned them at their moorings.

As farms and ranches in the interior recovered, Tampa's small port resumed shipping Florida cattle, oranges, and other produce, primarily to New Orleans, Key West, and Cuba, which was experiencing the Ten Years' War.

After decades of efforts by local leaders to connect the area to the United States' rapidly growing railroad network, Tampa's long-standing overland transportation problem was finally remedied in February 1884, when Henry B.

[47] The railroad enabled phosphate and commercial fishing exports to go north,[48] brought many new products into the Tampa market, and started the first real tourist industry: visitors coming in modest numbers to Henry Plant's first Tampa-area hotels.

The founding of the cigar-centered neighborhood of Ybor City in 1885, which brought a large influx of Cubans, Spaniards, Italians, and a handful of other immigrants to what had previously been a typical small southern town.

The majority of Italian immigrants came from Alessandria Della Rocca and Santo Stefano Quisquina, two small Sicilian towns with which Tampa still maintains strong ties.

[62][63] Phosphate, a mineral used to make fertilizers and other products, was discovered in the Bone Valley region southeast of Tampa in 1880 by "Captain Bill" Kendrick, "the original Florida cracker".

It was the only time when Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel was full to capacity as army officers and newspaper correspondents sought out more comfortable quarters than a hot and dusty tent.

In 1905, Stephen M. Sparkman, the first member of Congress from what was considered "South Florida", brought in federal money to dig deep-water channels from Port Tampa to Channelside, allowing for larger ships.

It was created by George W. Hardee who worked for Tampa's municipal government and made it in an attempt to try and draw larger crowds for festivities held on May Day.

This led Governor Sidney J. Catts who opposed entering the war into a dilemma but ended up requiring all ships leaving Tampa for foreign countries to be inspected.

Shoemaker said in a series of letters to the Tampa Tribune that its party platform would be things such as: utilities being put under public ownership, giving free hospital care for the disadvantaged, doing monthly investigations into the city's departments, a more effective law for referendums and an economic system where the homeless could produce items for their own personal usage.

[94] The Tampa Shipyard Company would secure a $750,000 loan from the Public Works Administration in 1938 to construct a 10,000 ton dry dock so it could compete for getting shipbuilding contracts that were made available through the US Maritime Commission and were authorized by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936.

The airline flew scheduled flights from downtown St. Petersburg, Florida, across the bay to just south of where Tampa International Airport sits today, carrying just the pilot and a single passenger in a flying boat biplane.

To protect their interests (and keep gangland killings unsolved), crime bosses regularly kept local officials – from state attorneys to top law enforcement personnel and even mayors – on the payroll.

After his death in 1954 from cancer, control passed to his son Santo Trafficante Jr., who established alliances with families in New York City and extended his power throughout Florida and into Batista-era Cuba.

[90] Though most of the accused persons were acquitted or given light sentences, the trials helped to motivate Tampa to end the corruption and general sense of lawlessness which had prevailed for decades.

Hall of Famer Wade Boggs grew up in Tampa, as did Tony La Russa, Lou Piniella, Tino Martinez, Luis Gonzalez, Doc Gooden, and Gary Sheffield.

Ivan roared past the Florida gulf coast on its way to landfall near the Alabama/Florida border, passing near enough to bring high seas and stormy conditions to the Tampa area.

[125][n 8] In 2013, six additional busts were unveiled on the Riverwalk: Cyril Blythe Andrews; Cody Fowler; Kate V. Jackson; Peter O. Knight; Paulina Pedroso; and Garfield Devoe Rogers.

They included: Meroba Hooker Crane, Edward Daniel Davis, Ignacio Haya, Francisco Rodriguez, Norma Tina Russo, and Mack Ramsey Winton.