Happy Birthday to the St. Pete Times! On July 25, 1884, editor J.M. “Doc” Baggett, printer M. Joel McMullen, and business manager Dr. J.L. Edgar published the first issue of the West Hillsborough Times. Based in Dunedin, it was a four-page weekly newspaper, printed in the back of Edgar’s pharmacy. Type was set by [...]
Of necessity, hospitals have grown crazily - ever try to find anything at Tampa General? Same thing with the IRS and with software programming. And your daily newspaper. It will take some money (and a big ball of guts) to knock it all down and start from scratch. But it might be worth it.
Walking through native Florida forests can feel a lot like a trip to Jurassic Park, due to the proliferation of ferns and cycads in Florida’s natural landscape. These plants have been around since the time of the dinosaurs and, like the American Alligator, have survived the dynamic changes of earth and man ever since. One of [...]
Friendship TrailBridge was opened in 1999 after efforts by a group of regular citizens called “Save the Gandy” were successful. Ten years later, the structure has been deemed unsafe, closed to the public, and is at another crossroads. Here are the options: A full repair of the entire bridge, in order to reopen it to recreational use, [...]
The Courtney Campbell Causeway linking Tampa and Clearwater recently reached 75 years of age, and local history buffs celebrated the birthday, and put up a new historical marker. Those of you who read the stories will know that Ben T. Davis built the thing, but his name has since been relegated to an undesirable excuse of [...]
We spend a lot of our lives waiting for stuff. Usually, it’s a lot of aggravation for little reward. But sometimes, the wait is worth it. It is my intention to highlight something that qualifies as worth the wait in Tampa Bay each week… It seems like every town, regardless of size, has at least a [...]
With the closing of Valencia Garden, I got to thinking about some of Tampa’s other long-time independents that have gone over the past 15 years or so. It helped that Jeff Houck put up some photos of these places over the years. I was fortunate enough to visit the following places, which no longer [...]
You may have heard of the latest local attempt at a world record. Lt. Col. Kristine Gould and retired Lt. Col. Harold “Chip” Bowlin are Tampa residents who serve on the parachute team of the Special Operations Command at MacDill Air Force Base. They completed 103 tandem skydives within 20 hours over at Skydive City [...]
I enjoyed a nice lunch over at Valencia Garden a couple weeks ago – little did I know it would be my last. Valencia Garden opened in 1927, and abruptly closed this week, once a sale of the property was final. The Tampa Bay Business Journal is reporting that the University of Tampa is one of [...]
