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    St. Petersburg's Piers
    St. Petersburg's Piers
    St. Petersburg's Piers
    Ebook190 pages57 minutes

    St. Petersburg's Piers

    By Nevin D. Sitler

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    Commerce, tourism, recreation, and even the quest for eternal youth were the primary incentives for building piers along St. Petersburg's downtown waterfront as early as 1854. For more than 160 years, developers and entrepreneurs pushed wooden or concrete structures from the shoreline to the deeper waters of Tampa Bay. Railroads were behind the early development, allowing cargo loads to be transferred from ship to rail with the least amount of effort. A large and profitable fishing industry evolved. Electrically powered trolley cars shuttled tourists to and from cruise ships. Promoters built bathhouses, spas, and bait houses to entice locals and visitors, and casino gathering halls of various, often controversial, styles were proposed, built, destroyed, loved, and detested. Competing piers were built only 10 feet apart. Mother Nature's elements, including a hurricane, and politics ravaged most of the remaining structures.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateApr 27, 2015
    ISBN9781439651070
    St. Petersburg's Piers
    Author

    Nevin D. Sitler

    Nevin Sitler is the Director of Education and Outreach at the St. Petersburg Museum of History and holds a Master's Degree in Florida Studies from the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He is a contributing author of Florida's Historic Places, The Rivers of the Green Swamp Anthology and provided historical consultation for Florida's Fabulous Lighthouses. Richard (Ric) Sitler is a retired military journalist whose assignments ranged from the 1968 release of the USS Pueblo crew by North Korea to Norman Schwarzkopf's successful 1991 Desert Storm assault to free Kuwait. His eclectic mix of published articles includes interviews with the comic strip creators of Beetle Bailey and Peanuts and hard rocker Alice Cooper, a Texas barbecue at the LBJ Ranch and a backstage chess game with the legendary Ray Charles.

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      Book preview

      St. Petersburg's Piers - Nevin D. Sitler

      History.

      INTRODUCTION

      Since 1854, several piers of some fashion have stretched into Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg’s shores. Early piers in the fledgling community were designed with trade and commerce in mind, while 20th-century piers centered on tourism and pleasure-seekers.

      Following passage of the 1850 Florida Swamp Land Act, which freed up nearly 15 million acres of land for railroads and settlers, Lt. C.H Berryman, a US Navy surveyor, constructed a small settlement and short pier near present-day Fifth Avenue North. Responding to Sen. David Yulee’s plans to extend a railroad line from Fernandina to Tampa Bay, Berryman recorded over 30,000 soundings of the waters and cited downtown St. Petersburg as an optimal site for a deepwater seaside railroad depot. When plans changed and the rail line extended only to Cedar Key, Berryman’s hamlet concept was soon abandoned. However, his 1855 report on his findings fueled railroad mogul Peter Demens’s desire to extend his line into the Tampa Bay area.

      Although abandoned by the Navy, Berryman’s carpenter, William Paul, returned to take possession of the small hamlet he helped to build. It was later known as Paul’s Landing. William Paul planted the first orange grove on the peninsula. By 1859, he left to take care of his ill wife.

      With the outbreak of the Civil War, the quest for a deepwater port in St. Petersburg was put on hold. But it was not forgotten. By 1889, Peter Demens had completed his Orange Belt Railroad extension into the heart of St. Petersburg, terminating the line 2,000 feet into the bay as a shipping port. The Railroad Pier also offered unlimited opportunities for anglers, sunbathers, and the carefree who dared the pier’s toboggan slide. A few years later, in 1896, D.F.S. Brantley’s pier delighted visitors with a horse-drawn flatcar used to shuttle goods and passengers from water’s edge to and from moored ships.

      In 1901, Edwin Tomlinson’s Fountain of Youth attraction on his pier promised to rejuvenate the body and soul with his curative well water. By 1906, Frank Davis had trolley lines, and hundreds of lightbulbs extended over his Electric Pier. Next, in 1913, came the Municipal Recreation Pier at the foot of Second Avenue North. To the consternation of many business-minded folks attempting to cash in on docking and pier usage fees, it seemed as if the city had more piers than pelicans.

      Following years of pier wars, waterfront improvement initiatives, and the devastating 1921 hurricane, which destroyed all of the waterfront piers, boosters and civic leaders pushed for a grander replacement to the beloved attractions. With a name to match the construction costs, the Million Dollar Pier opened in 1926 to immediate fanfare. The Mediterranean-themed pier was the brainchild of Evening Independent publisher Lew Brown. It offered dancing, shopping, and recreation. Ever since the city’s birth, piers had proved popular, but the 1926 incarnation had something more; it became an instant destination for money-spending tourists.

      During these heady years, city boundaries expanded. Scores of impressive boom-time hotels rose skyward, as did land prices and census figures. St. Petersburg’s population, which topped 14,000 by 1920, had nearly doubled as the boom was in full swing four years later. By the 1960s, nearly 182,000 folks called St. Pete home.

      The year 1967 was a tumultuous one, as Martin Luther King Jr. prepared to protest the war in Vietnam, and unprecedented and deadly race riots continued across the nation. And the city of St. Petersburg was in the midst of its own contention. The city’s landmark, the Million Dollar Pier and Casino, had just landed on the butcher’s block. The pier and casino were being replaced. After 41 years of operation and subsequent disrepair, time and decay demanded replacement. For four decades, this monument to excess and indulgence hosted ballroom dances, choir sing-alongs, card parties, and nearly any other event a leisured population demanded.

      As journalist Paul Schnitt reported, The ‘Million Dollar Pier’ was the pride of Florida’s West Coast . . . it was a shimmering spear in Tampa Bay, and the pride of St. Petersburg . . . and was the center to the city’s appeal to tourists. The dissent regarding the structure’s August 1967 destruction was less than astonishing. Editorials published by the Independent and the Times, proclaimed sentimental shock. Just how loud or lazy the Save our Pier program was can be summarized by the minuscule 600 signatures presented to the city council in protest to the demolition. And no one was prepared to take City Councilman William Allison up on his willingness to reconsider securing a $50,000 lease on the property.

      Within a few weeks, demolition bids were announced, and the pier met its demise. The pier head would be nothing more than a paved park for the next five years. Interestingly, the looming and essentially undisclosed piece of the puzzle came down to questions of why. Why destroy the pier’s recreational structures during the summer vacation months, when dancing and fishing could be at full swing? And many wanted to know why there were no plans already in place for the next phase of St. Petersburg’s landmark.

      As the century closed with moonwalks and Woodstock, St. Petersburg searched for its next pier, its next image. The rather hurried demolition of St. Petersburg’s Million Dollar Pier recreation pavilion spoke loudly of the city’s intent for change. It also spoke of the silent insecurity of an aged identity.

      The eventual construction of a modern, inverted pyramid was a blatant attempt to shed the old and prove the city’s commitment to a new, younger identity. In hindsight, there are questions as to whether it was a needed catalyst for change. Perhaps it was, but probably not. The same subtropical climate and exotic terrain that lured investors

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