Shuffling Away

Shuffleboard courts in downtown Avon Park, Florida


Shuffleboard and golden days of retirement are entwined in Florida mythology. In the mid to late twentieth century, there wasn't a trailer court in the state worth a lick if it didn't have a shuffleboard court or two. This association with the elderly has been a bit of a public relations challenge in attracting new fans to the sport, although the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club has a very popular Friday night session with live music.

Playing shuffleboard in St. Petersburg, back in the day (Florida State Archives)


The Kissimmee All States Tourist Club's shuffleboard courts will be torn down soon as part of the city's Lakefront Park redevelopment. Grass-roots efforts to save or at least commemorate the courts include the Facebook group Save Our Shuffleboard. KAST is the subject of the National Trust for Historic Preservation's Story of the Day today: Florida To Lose 1941 Shuffleboard Courts.

Oh Christmas Tree

A photograph of St. Petersburg's Christmas Tree going up in North Straub Park shortly after Thanksgiving this year, with the bay in the background:

Part of waterfront holiday decorations and celebrations that included a Glice skating rink.


Straub Park is named in honor of William L. Straub, the St. Petersburg Times editor who campaigned for public ownership of the waterfront. He endlessly promoted St. Petersburg and understood that an attractive waterfront would attract more tourists. Of the cities on the bay, with Tampa to the east, St. Petersburg to the west was the less industrial, the more reliant on tourist dollars. It was the "Sunshine City." In the 1910s and 1920s Straub pushed St. Petersburg's citizens and leaders to use urban planning and to invest public money in the environment to ensure the current and future prosperity of St. Petersburg and Pinellas County.

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Further reading:

St. Petersburg and the Florida Dream, 1888-1950, by Raymond Arsenault (University Press of Florida 1999)

Visions of Eden: Environmentalism, Urban Planning, and City Building in St. Petersburg, Florida, 1900-1995, by R. Bruce Stephenson (Ohio State University Press 1997)

Congratulations and Best Wishes

Florida's governor Charlie Crist is getting married today at St. Petersburg's First United Methodist Church. He is the third governor of this state to marry while in office in the past 100 years.

In June 1949, Fuller Warren and Barbara Manning were married at a private home in Los Angeles.



















In February 1967 Claude Kirk and Erika Mattfield were married at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach.
















Best wishes and congratulations to the bride and groom!

(Photos from the Florida State Archives)

St. Petersburg's Pier

Then

(Florida State Archives)

Now















History of The Pier

Polynesian Putter

The other evening we played a round. Polynesian Putter is a 1970s mini golf course on St. Pete Beach that features a large tiki head with glowing blue eyes. Three years ago it was chosen as the area's "Best Putt-Putt," and I don't think much has changed since then. It's basic, many of the course obstacles are actually garden statuary, but if you just want a relaxed way to pass an hour with family or friends, it's just the thing.

Founded in 1972, Polynesian Putter is a Treasure Island survivor. The tiki head on the course is echoed by a tiki head on the score card, although some have pointed out that the tiki head on the score card was actually at Tiki Gardens. Tiki Gardens was a Hawaiian-themed resort down the road, which is now a local beach access.































The hole under the snake forks, and you have to choose which way to go.

A Little Comfort in St. Petersburg

Tucked between the Museum of Fine Arts and the Museum of History near St. Petersburg's Pier is this comfort station. "Comfort station" is a fairly outdated term for public restroom.













This particular comfort station is architect-designed, in the Romanesque Revival style (it's a City of St. Petersburg historic landmark). Today it may seem odd to have a pretty public restroom, especially one right on the waterfront in the midst of museums and tourist attractions. But in the early twentieth century, public facilities showed that a city was progressive, clean, safe. Tourism was very important in St. Petersburg in the 1920s, and while no one was not going to come visit because of the restrooms, having a nice comfort station didn't hurt.

The architect of this little gem was Henry Taylor, who designed many of St. Pete's finest buildings, including the Vinoy hotel and St. Mary Our Lady of Grace Church. The remarkable similarity between the later and the comfort station has fed local urban lore, that the church didn't pay Taylor for his work, and in retribution he used the design to build a restroom. However, it seems this story is a case of fiction stranger than fact, based on construction dates and Taylor's wife. It may be more difficult to prove or disprove stories that the comfort station is haunted by a woman named Agnes.

Grand Central Airport

In 1929 Fred V. Blair built Grand Central Airport on Weedon Island. In 1931, Eastern Air Transport began flights from this airport, with service to Daytona Beach on Curtiss Kingbirds, and service to New York on Curtiss Condors. The airport closed in the late 1940s, but the remains of the terminal and control tower building are still visible next to Weedon Island Preserve's parking lot.

Building the airport required clearing and leveling large portions of the island. Over the past 60 years gopher tortoises have worked hard to convert the former runway into scrub.















For more information: Abandoned & Little-Known Airfields: Florida: Southern Tampa Area. Includes photos and aerial views of Grand Central Airport.

The Country Club at Snell Isle

Now part of the Renaissance Vinoy Gulf Club in St. Petersburg, this building used to be the Snell Isle Golf Club or the Sunset Country Club. It was built in the 1920s by C. Perry Snell. Snell started out as a pharmacist from Kentucky, then married well and came to St. Petersburg for a honeymoon. He ended up as one of the city's most prominent Boom Time developers. Snell Isle was built in the mid 1920s as an upscale development. Like so many other Florida developers, the end of the Boom hit Snell hard, but he perserved to finish Snell Isle. He enjoyed travel and collecting art work, some of which he incorporated into developments and buildings. The panther street signs in Snell Isle have an European heritage.



















(My Florida History - Old Houses on Campus included one of Snell's homes in St. Petersburg.)

Go figure... Go Rays!

Friday night was a special night for the Tampa Bay (Devil) Rays. Their win over the Baltimore Orioles guaranteed the Rays a winning season, the first in the franchise's history.
















The Rays play at Tropicana Field, an air-conditioned indoor stadium. Not particularly romantic or glamorous, but immensely practical for Florida summers.

Sunshine Skyway

Here we are, heading south again, over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.















This is the world's longest cable stayed concrete bridge, built in 1987. The cables are painted yellow and lit at night, but right now they are in the middle of a repainting project.

Going up . . .































. . . and down.

















This bridge replaced the original 1950s Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which was hit by a freighter during a 1980 storm. A section of the bridge fell into the water, killing 35 people. The new bridge design incorporated features to prevent that from happening again. Still, it's not entirely comforting to look out the window and see parts of the original span that have been turned into fishing piers. Here's the north pier:














On the plus side, the piers are very popular with fishermen.

The bridge is so high because it crosses Tampa Bay, and all the ships (the tankers, the cargo ships, the cruise ships) have to pass underneath to reach the Port of Tampa and Port Manatee. The bridge also connects St. Petersburg and Bradenton/Sarasota, saving an hour or more of drive time around the bay. Before the bridge, there was the Bee Line Ferry. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge (officially named the Bob Graham Sunshine Skyway Bridge in 2005) is part of Interstate-275, and there is a one dollar toll.

Florida News Stories

"The Strawberry Schools" (Tampa Tribune, April 6, 2008): "We started in April and ended in December. The three-month break from January to March was timed for when the strawberries ripened. Children were needed to help pick the crops. On small family farms, everybody had to work to make a living."

"Bring back Jack!" (St. Petersburg Times, April 2, 2008): "If we lived in Florida, we'd reach out the back door and pick oranges for breakfast. We'd catch fish in the canal behind the house. Coconuts, Bea! We'll have our own coconut tree!''

"Historic fishing shacks of bygone days" (The News-Press, March 29, 2008): "Norton’s shack — where he fished for mullet and pompano by night and tended nets by day, where he waited for boats to bring food and where he ultimately died — still stands in Pine Island Sound more than 80 years after it was built. "

"The Ghosts of Al Lang" (Tampa Tribune, Special Report) Al Lang Field and Spring Training in St. Petersburg

"Ruth And Gehrig At Home In St. Petersburg" (Tampa Tribune, March 23, 2008) ""I think a lot of people here sit on this rooftop and wonder what was going on back then in those penthouse suites," says Marsha Reynolds, a Flori-de-Leon resident and co-chairman of its Heritage Committee."

"As Kissimmee celebrates its 125th anniversary, its identity is changing" (Orlando Sentinel, March 24, 2008) "But as ranches give way to housing developments, the small community that turns 125 years old this week is struggling with an identity crisis: balancing the cow-town image (and the jokes that come with it) while trying to shift toward a more sophisticated reputation as a cosmopolitan town next to Walt Disney World."

"Flavor of Key West supports a struggling Florida industry" (Herald Tribune, March 16, 2008) "At the Eaton Street Seafood Market in the historic district, a long glass case displayed a who's who of the city's seafood scene: plump piles of pinks (the local shrimp) snuggled next to a yellowtail snapper, a mound of stone crab claws and fresh slabs of grouper."

Virtual Wanderings Through Florida

Various interesting sites I've happened across lately...

Miami: Reflections on the River. You can watch videos about the Miami River, and even make your own to add to the site.

Florida's Lost Tourist Attractions. 50+ homages to roadside attractions that have passed.

Historical Tampa. A Google Map showing former locations of historic buildings, site, and landmarks in Tampa.

St. Petersburg Times' Special Report on Spring Training in St. Petersburg

Spanish River Papers. Available through the Boca Raton Historical Society's website, pdf copies of their journal, dating from 1973 to 1993.

Narvaez / Anderson Mound and Jungle Prada

In the Jungle Terrace neighborhood of St. Petersburg, there is a small waterfront park at the corner of Park Street and Elbow Lane. The park has a boat ramp into Boca Ciega Bay, plenty of parking, and some short trails that seem fairly popular with fishermen. This bit of relatively undeveloped land is quiet today, but perhaps it's just resting, catching a breather, after a hectic few centuries.

Nearby is the Narvaez / Anderson mound site, the former home of Tocobaga Indians. Here is where Spanish explorer Panfilo de Narvaez landed in 1528, on a rather disasterous journey along the Gulf coast. In the 1920s, this was part of the Jungle Prada complex, home to St. Petersburg's first nightclub. Stories abound concerning Al Capone's connections to this site.

Old Houses on Campus

The University of South Florida-St. Petersburg has a small, two-building historic district on campus, consisting of the Williams House and the Snell House.

The Williams House, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975 and desinated a City of St. Petersburg Landmark in 1986, was built in 1891 by Genreal John C. Williams, a key figure in St. Petersburg's earliest days. This Queen Anne-style house was originally located in downtown St. Petersburg, where it was part of the Manhattan Hotel for many decades before being moved to the USF-SP campus.

The Snell House gets its name from an historical association with C. Perry Snell, a leading St. Petersburg developer in the early twentieth century. Snell built this eccletic Dutch Colonial bungalow in 1904 as his own home, where he lived with his wife Lillian for a few years. Like the Williams house, the Snell House was part of a downtown hotel before it was moved to its current location on the USF-SP campus. It is now home to the Florida Studies and University Honors programs.

The Snell House features rounded rooms, three sided bay windows, classical columns, and a gambrel roof.