Tierra Verde is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pinellas County, Florida, United States.

[4] The community is located on an island near the entrance of Tampa Bay, and is connected by the bridges of the Pinellas Bayway to both St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach.

The islands were sacred ground to Native nations as far back as 500 years ago, archaeologists suggest, and deadly conflicts occurred when outsiders trespassed.

One explorer, Juan Ponce de León, came to the area in 1513, and again in 1521, when he received the wound that he later died from after returning to Cuba.

Later, Narvaez and Hernando de Soto explored, and then pirates and buccaneers sailed the area, including José Gaspar, Juan Gomez and Jean Lafitte.

In 1848 Robert E. Lee, then a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. army, recommended that Mullet Key be used for coastal defense in Florida.

Cabbage Key was documented in 1902 as the location where a particularly large alligator was caught, the specimen being reported as twelve feet long and weighing 431 pounds.

[12] Early settlers to the area included Baltimore sea captain William Bunce and Silas Dent, who with his brother had a dairy farm.

George "Florida" Roberts was a fishing guide for figures such as land developer Walter Fuller, Cecil B. Detre, and John Wanamaker.

The thousands of tarpon caught by Roberts and his clients can be found as far away as Alexandria, Egypt, in the home of Sir Harry Rofe.

Waldron formed a partnership with two builders from Detroit, Hyman and Irving Green, who became majority owners of a group of 36 corporations.

Their intent: to pump some 9,000,000 cubic yards (6,900,000 m3) of sand and shells from the bottom of the bay and thus enlarge and raise the ground level of the three keys Doc Waldron had purchased from the State and join them to create one large island intersected with canals between the sections.

Meanwhile, others sought county and state permission to dredge and pump the bay bottom and build up Bird Key, today's Bayway Isles and Isla Del Sol.

The state's final road and bridge plans were approved in early 1960, and the developer's dredging permit was granted in December of that year.

Waldron-Green and their various partners and corporations then sold the islands, with the dredge-and-fill permits, to Louis Berlanti, a contractor from New York City, and his son, Fred.

In January 1963, Guy Lombardo's Port O' Call Resort had its grand opening, where Frank Sinatra, Marlene Dietrich, Liberace, Mel Tormé, and many other musical and theatrical stars would later perform.

Guy Lombardo died in 1977, the same year that real estate developer Frank E. Mackle III was elected president of a new venture called the Tierra Verde Company, a joint venture between Madonna Corporation (a Murchison interest), and Delverde (Deltona) Corporation.

Because of lack of local interest, the Tierra Verde Company worked with a network of international brokers and sold many lots to overseas investors.

However, in 1984 an exit ramp was built connecting the Pinellas Bayway to Interstate 275, and Tierra Verde property sales increased greatly because of the easier access.