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.

Florida News Stories

"Swamp Buggy fever...No antidote!" (Marco Eagle, October 19, 2008) "It was pure muck after the potatoes were dug up, perfect!"

"Using old curbs, Trilby house rises piece by piece " (St. Petersburg Times, October 20, 2008) "The Tudor-style stone cottage nestled on a bluff on a bend in the Withlacoochee River looks like something straight out of Harry Potter. With its English garden, tower, sun-faded blue columns and heavy front door handmade from 1,000-year-old pecky cypress hauled a century ago from a Florida swamp...."

"Woman returns to Breakers 65 years after her birth there" (Palm Beach Post, October 7, 2008)
"The Breakers 'a different world' for mom who gave birth there 65 years ago" (Sun Sentinel, October 8, 2008)

"Biscayne National Park celebrates 40 years" (Miami Herald, October 12, 2008)

"Distant Shores" (Biscayne Times) "Biscayne Bay may be our area’s most prominent feature, but just try getting close to it."

Tampa Bay Automobile Museum

Tucked away in Pinellas Park is the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum with 30+ collectible cars, many of which I had never heard of before. Such as:

The 1962 Tiburon Roadster, designed by Henry Covington in St. Petersburg, Florida. According to the exhibit sign, this roadster (and its convertible version) are the only cars designed, built, marketed, and sold in the Tampa / St. Petersburg area.

And then there's the Hanomag Kommisbrot -- perhaps ancestral to the SmartCar? The Kommisbrot was built in Germany in the 1920s and got 60 miles to the gallon -- with a top speed of 35 miles per hour. Given the looks of this car, that must have been terrifyingly fast.

For more information about the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum, visit their website, http://tbauto.org/.

For more about the Tiburon roadster, here's a link to a 2006 article in the St. Petersburg Times: "At last, 'The Shark' finds its way back to the Bay"

Alligator Alley

Alligator (from Merriam-Webster Online)
Pronunciation: \ˈa-lə-ˌgā-tər\
Etymology: Spanish el lagarto the lizard, from el the (from Latin ille that) + lagarto lizard, from Vulgar Latin *lacartus, from Latin lacertus, lacerta — more at lizard
Date: 1579
1 a: either of two crocodilians (Alligator mississippiensis of the southeastern United States and A. sinensis of China) having broad heads not tapering to the snout and a special pocket in the upper jaw for reception of the enlarged lower fourth tooth

Alley
Pronunciation: \ˈa-lē\
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French alee, from aler to go
Date: 14th century
1: a garden or park walk bordered by trees or bushes

Alligator Alley

A long highway bordered by grass, trees, and lizards with broad heads and plenty of teeth.

It's that part of Interstate 75 that takes a left at Naples, and heads east across the Everglades. It's straight, and it's flat, and you'd better set your cruise control. There's one gas station on this 70-something mile long stretch of road. Sometimes on long car rides we play the game where you take turns naming something you see in alphabetical order (I see an alligator. I see a bird. I see a car. . .) This game goes slowly on Alligator Alley. The beauty and variety of the Everglades can be subtle, and not easily seen at cruising speeds.

But there are many spots along the highway where you can pull over for a closer look, or if you happened to bring your boat along, get out in the River of Grass.

The Alligator Alley Story

Everglades Reading List

Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Islands

One fine evening a week or so ago, I found myself on Davis Islands. So I drove down to the southern tip of the island, where it isn't so much that it's picturesque, as there's always something to see there.


Davis Islands (most people say Davis Island, but it is actually more than one piece of land completely surrounded by water. It's not a big deal whichever version you use.) is a Tampa neighborhood out in Hillsborough Bay. This place started out as a couple of grassy, muddy islands, cleverly named Big and Little Grassy Islands. Then in the 1920s David P. Davis turned these into a Florida Boom Time development, with elaborate Mediterranean Revival buildings and houses. Unfortunately for Davis, the Florida Boom ended, and he found himself in deep, dark financial waters. Soon, he sadly ended up in actual waters, disappearing from a luxury yacht during a Trans-Atlantic voyage.

(History and old photographs of Davis Islands are available on the Davis Islands Civic Association website.)

In the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration built an airport at the southern end of Davis Islands. The airport was named after Peter O. Knight, a prominent Tampa lawyer, who was also very involved with local businesses, most notably the Tampa Electric Company. It was through the electric company that Knight convinced Stone & Webster to invest in Davis Islands when David P. Davis was struggling in the 1920s. The airport included a seaplane basin. After World War II, Drew Field (which had been an Army Air Force training base during the war) became Tampa's new international airport. Peter O. Knight Airport's runways were too short for the newer, larger passenger planes, so it was used by private planes and helicopters.

The airport's original administration building was torn down in the 1960s, and replaced by the current building. Although seaplanes aren't quite as popular anymore, the basin is still there at Davis Islands, only now it's a marina and home to the Davis Island Yacht Club. It's also the location of an extremely popular dog park, which includes a beach for dogs to splash in the bay as cruise ships and tankers glide by on the Port of Tampa's shipping channel.

A Quick Trip to Dunedin

I was in Dunedin Monday and stopped by the local museum, which is closed on Mondays by the way, and I would have known that if I had looked on the Dunedin Historical Society and Museum's website. But it was still a lovely visit, with a coffee/ice cream shop and a post office in an old boxcar next to the Pinellas Trail. The museum is in a historic train depot, and the trail used to be a train track before it became such a popular place to ride bikes. Even on a July afternoon it was pleasant sitting on a nearby bench in the shade, with the breeze blowing off the Gulf.

Take the Train to Tampa Downs

I've noticed a lot of you find my blog when you search for history of race tracks in Florida. So for you, here's a little something I learned this weekend.

I was at the library, reeling through microfilm of old Tampa newspapers, reading about legal issues that shut down local horse and dog tracks in the 1920s (gambling, you know). And I noticed the ads the track ran on the bottom right hand corner of the sports page each day there was racing. These were attractive ads, with dynamic graphics of horses running and fashionable women, but what caught my eye were the directions for getting to get to the track. Tampa Downs (which became Sunshine Park, and now, Tampa Bay Downs) is not completely on the beaten path here, and I had wondered why people would venture so far out from the city to go to the races. But it seems that race fans could catch a special Seaboard train from Tampa'a Union Station to the track, or one of the Blue Line buses that ran every hour or two. It's small potatoes compared to the train from New York's Penn Station to Belmont Park, but on a Friday in 1927, 3,000 fans reportedly showed up to watch the ponies.

Old Memorial Highway

On the Upper Tampa Bay Trail, at the Old Memorial Highway Trailhead, is a historical marker, of sorts. A large sign straddles a surviving chunk of the original Memorial Highway pavement.

Historically, the highway ran from Tampa to the Pinellas County line. According to this sign: "Dedicated on January 1, 1921, the highway honored Tampa and Hillsborough County citizens who died in World War I. As part of the original projet, the Tampa Rotary Club planted oak trees on both sides of the road and erected monuments along the roadway to the war heroes."

The bottom left photograph on the sign shows the young oak trees lining the highway. And here's how Old Memorial Highway looks today, facing west from the trail marker.

The photo on the bottom right of the trail sign shows the World War I monument that stood at the intersection of Memorial Highway and Howard Avenue, until it became a traffic hazard and was moved to the American Legion Cemetery. Another similar marker stands on a small island in a sea of traffic at the intersection of Kennedy Boulevard and the modern start point of Memorial Highway (this is on the west side of Westshore Mall in Tampa).

The old highway was paved with asphalt blocks, which created a durable but bumpy surface. Asphalt blocks were a fairly common paving material in the early twentieth century, when they were made in local factories and transported to the construction site. (In St. Petersburg, some streets in the Old Northeast neighborhood were asphalt block.)

The Upper Tampa Bay Trail is maintained by the Hillsborough County Parks, Recreation, and Conservation Department. The Old Memorial Highway Trailhead offers shady parking and picnic tables, along with easy access to the trail. This trailhead is located on the southern end of Montague Street, south of Braulio Alonso High School.

Multimodal Transportation and Touring Historic Florida

From time to time on this blog, I have discussed heritage tourism and scenic byways, and the topic of one-tank trips has even come up. But with so much public attention turning to gas prices, climate change, and mass transit, I wondered if too much emphasis is being placed on automotive travel. My first step towards an answer is a quick survey of existing modes of transportation available for exploration of this state.

In the category of engine-powered transportation, I found driving tours, boat tours, trolley tours, bus tours, amphibious duck boat tours, seaplane, and even conch train tours.

In the category of self-propelled transporation, I found walking tours, canoe trails, hiking trails, and bike tours.

In the category of animal-propelled transporation, I found horse trails. Ostrich and alligator-drawn carriages seem to have fallen out of favor.

Florida's economy relies heavily on tourism, but Florida is also a large and growing state with complex transportation needs. The two issues intersect -- how will tourists get to Florida, and how will they move around once they are here? If it is also a goal to promote heritage tourism, how should tourists best travel to historic and cultural sites?

(Oddly, looking at this list, I see that although I have traveled Florida by car, foot, boat, canoe, bicycle, and horseback, I have never personally been on any of the tours or trails I linked to. My subconscious mind must be muttering about vacations again.)

Circa 1901-1905 photograph of Governor W. S. Jennings by the St. Augustine city gates in an alligator cart, courtesy of State Archives of Florida, Florida Photographic Collection.