|
 Want to sound like a local? People who live in Saint Petersburg call it St. Pete, but never St. Pete's! And did you know its nickname is The Sunshine City? History proves why. The big freeze of 1894-95 came as a tragedy to thousands of people in Florida, but had positive results for St. Petersburg. Many of the citrus groves on Pinellas Point survived the low temperature, and a number of growers in other parts of the state who had been frozen out came here to make a new start. They played an important part in the development of this city. Events following the freeze conspired to dramatically change Pinellas for the next decade.  First was a report to the American Medical Convention in 1885 that the Pinellas Peninsula was "The Healthiest Spot on Earth". In New Orleans at the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the AMS, a paper was read saying... "Where should a healthy city be built? Overlooking the deep Gulf of Mexico, with the broad waters of a beautiful bay nearly surrounding it, but with little upon its soil but primal forest, there is a large sub peninsular, Point Pinellas, waiting the hand of improvement. It lies in latitude 27 degrees and 42 minutes, and contains, with its adjoining keys about 160,000 acres of land. No marsh surrounds its shores or rests upon its surface; the sweep of its beach is broad and graceful, stretching many miles, and may be improved to an imposing extent. Its average winter temperature is 72 degrees. Those who have carefully surveyed the entire state think it offers the best climate in Florida." This report was given wide publicity and many physicians visited St. Petersburg.Second, a land developer named John Constantine Williams wanted to create a city in the Southern part of the peninsula. Pyotr Dementyev, a Russian immigrant turned entrepreneur, agreed to run his Orange Belt Railroad from Central Florida to Williams' holdings. Dementyev named the town St. Petersburg after his home town in Russia. Odd as it may seem, St. Petersburg's first important growth started as a summer resort. The railroads ran low-rate excursions to St. Petersburg in the summer from other parts of the state and many people came to spend the summer vacations here because it was much cooler. Saint Petersburg is linked by bridges to Tampa and Bradenton, and with causeways to a string of islets in the Gulf of Mexico. The Federal census of 1890 showed that St. Petersburg had 273 inhabitants, most of whom lived around Ninth Street (now Dr. MLK Jr. Street.) Saint Petersburg covers a land area of 154 sq km (60 sq mi), with a mean elevation of 13 m (44 ft) and a population of 248,232 (2000 census). Mayor: Rick Baker http://www.stpete.org/ |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
