Hillsborough County History: Part Six of a Series

Buffalo Soldier in Tampa, 1898
TBHC Collection

In 1898, Tampa was one of three port cities selected as the port of embarkation for troops bound for Cuba and the Spanish - American War.  During the summer months of June, July and August, Tampa's population swelled by over 40,000 temporary residents.  The small city was overwhelmed, but managed.  Although local merchants saw increased profits in the summer of 1898, there was no direct, long term, benefit to Tampa.  There were some indirect bonuses, not the least of which was the Army Corps of Engineers agreeing to dredge a shipping channel from Tampa Bay into Hillsborough Bay to downtown Tampa.

World War I would not have as drastic affect on Tampa, but World War II certainly would.  During the war years of 1939 - 1945, thousands of servicemen and women, and their families, would come to Florida.  Tampa sported three military bases:  MacDill Army Air Base, Drew Field and Henderson Field.  In addition, shipbuilding firms buzzed with activity 24 hours a day.  The two largest, Tampa Shipbuilding and Engineering Company and McCloskey Shipbuilding Company, employed hundreds and produced cargo and navy vessels for the war effort.

Franklin and Twiggs Streets,
downtown Tampa.
TBHC Collection

After the war, many of the servicemen and women would return to Hillsborough County, where they once trained, to live and start families.  The wartime growth continued, but in different areas.  Tampa's port was thriving.  MacDill Army Airfield would evolve to MacDill Air Force Base, home to the United States Central Command, while Drew Field became Tampa International Airport.  Busch Gardens occupies much of the area formerly covered by Henderson Field.

The county's population increased dramatically after World War II, from 207,844 in 1945 to approximately 958,050 in 1999.  Growth occured in all areas, but urban sprawl would dominate some parts of the county, especially those close to the City of Tampa.

Hillsborough County History: Part Four of a Series

Two years after Jackson's map was complete, Tampa received a city charter from the State of Florida.  Prosperity seemed certain, but national politics held different plans for Tampa and Hillsborough County. On January 10, 1861, Florida became the third state to secede from the Union.

The Confederate Army held Fort Brooke throughout most of the Civil War.  It was shelled by Union warships on several occasions and was captured in May 1864.  After scouting the area for a day, the victors found nothing of use and abandoned the area.  They returned until after the war as occupation troops.

Alfred Beal

Floridians, during Reconstruction, struggled with a wide variety of issues.  Most Black Floridians were experiencing freedom for the first time.  Freedman from the Hillsborough County settlements of Hopewell, Knights and Springhead founded Bealsville, a community south of Plant City.  While the Homestead Act granted the land, it did not guarantee the claimants would become landowners.  To retain title, applicants had to construct homes, clear land and procure farming implements.  Despite the overwhelming odds, the community succeeded, and still exists to this day.

Freedom, too, held no guarantee. It was tainted with the continued indignities heaped upon by whites, both southern and the new northern "carpetbaggers" who came to Florida to turn a quick profit at the expense of southerners, both white and black.  Depression, both emotional and economic, hung over Hillsborough County.

A Short History of Hillsborough County: Part 2 of a Series

1710 Map of Florida, TBHC Collection

Few, if any, of Florida's indigenous people survived beyond the 1700s.  Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the native population was decimated by European-introduced diseases, slave raids and warfare with both explorers and the Creek and Yamassee Indians from present-day Georgia and Alabama.  Handfuls of survivors were probably taken to Cuba by the Spanish when Florida came under English control in 1763.  Archaeological evidence discovered at the southern end of the Courtney Campbell Causeway dates from this time and suggests Cuban fishermen and their Tocobaga workers left for Cuba when the Spanish government withdrew from Florida.

In the mid-1700s, Native Americans from the areas north of Florida began entering the Tampa Bay area.  These new residents had customs and traditions similar to their extinct southern neighbors, but there were also differences.  The newcomers, later dubbed Seminoles, were a composite of a number of groups, including Creek, Yamassee and Apalachee, plus Africans, both freedmen and runaway slaves from colonial (later American) plantations.

Lord Hillsborough

Despite Florida being the first site of European colonization, Americans paid it little attention.  When control of the territory transferred from Spain to England in 1763, Florida was divided into East and West Florida, becoming the 14th and 15th British Colonies.  It was during this era that Hillsborough Bay and the Hillsborough River were named in honor of Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State of the British Colonies under King George III.  These southernmost colonies remained loyal to the crown during the American Revolution and at the end of the conflict (1783) Spain resumed ownership.

The Second Spanish Period (1783 - 1921) was marked by the growing conflict between the Seminoles and U. S. citizens living on either side of Florida's northern border.  Spain was powerless to stop the agressors on either side.

The Disappearing City: How Tampa was Voted Out of Existence

John T. Lesley

Though Tampa experienced growth and prosperity during the 1850s, war clouds and troubled times loomed on the horizon.  The city endured four years of strife during the American Civil War, including occupation by Federal troops in 1864, and by the end of the 1860s the city faced a bleak future.  Former Confederate officer and Tampa citizen John T. Lesley ran for mayor in Tampa’s 1869 election with a simple campaign promise:  vote for him and he would abolish the city of Tampa. 

His “No Corporation People’s Ticket” won, and the newly elected officials did not take office, thereby allowing the city’s 1855 charter to lapse, effectively eliminating the City of Tampa as a legal municipality.  Four years would pass before any sort of municipal government would take charge in Tampa, but another ten years would go by before the economic and emotional depression that had gripped Tampa was replaced by optimism.

Hope did eventually come to Tampa, and it arrived on steel rails via a steam powered engine.  Henry Plant’s decision to make Tampa the railhead for his South Florida Railroad, and Tampa Bay a main port for his steamships, revolutionized the area.  Plant’s arrival in 1883 was the first of three monumental developments for Tampa in the 1880s.  The second followed two years later when Vicente Martinez Ybor and Ignacio Haya decided to open cigar factories just outside of Tampa.  Ybor City would eventually become home to hundreds of cigar factories and tens of thousands of workers.  It was also around this time that phosphate was discovered in the area’s rivers, particularly the Hillsborough and Peace, as well as in the ground in eastern and southern Hillsborough County.

Tampa’s population exploded, from 720 people in 1880 to over 5,500 in 1890.  New neighborhoods blossomed with these new arrivals.  Preceding Ybor City were Tampa Heights (originally known as North Tampa) and Hyde Park.  Together with Ybor City and what is now downtown Tampa, these four areas formed the first four wards of the new City of Tampa, which received its charter from the state on July 15, 1887.  Tampa was finally realizing the success that had been anticipated thirty years earlier.

A Short History of Hillsborough County: Part One of a Series

The county of Hillsborough was created by an act of the Florida Legislature on January 25, 1834.  The original, or historic, Hillsborough County covered approximately 14,600 square miles -- all or part of 24 present-day counties (an area larger than 8 states at the time).  By comparison, today's Hillsborough County is 1,072 square miles.  Its history is as varied and fascinating as any other place in this country.  People have lived in this area of West Central Florida for over 11,000 years, and their story is, in effect, our story.

Florida's indigenous people flourished here thousands of years before the first explorers arrived from Europe.  The Timucua and the Calusa were two of the largest and most highly-developed groups who controlled much of the peninsula and its population.  Different Timucuan people spoke dialects of the same language and held possession of the northern third of Florida, while the Calusa ruled over southwest Florida.  The area now known as Hillsborough County was occupied by smaller groups, notably the Tocobaga, Mocoso and Ucita.

Though probably known to Europeans before, Florida was "officially" located by Spaniard Juan Ponce de Leon in March of 1513.  He was followed by a long line of adventurers, including Panfilo de Narvaez (April 1528) and Hernando de Soto (May 1539).  Archaeological evidence shows that Narvaez began his explorations from Tampa Bay, while debate continues as to de Soto's actual landing place.  The first priest to celebrate mass in Florida -- Fray Luis Cancer de Barbastro on June 20, 1549 -- celebrated it on the shores of Tampa Bay.  This exploration and settlement of Florida by Europeans dealt a catastrophic blow to the First Floridians. - RKP

City of Tampa is Dissolved

1855 Map of Tampa (TBHC Collection)

Following the end of the Civil War, Tampa’s leaders attempted to return their shattered city to some level of normalcy. Not surprisingly, Federal authorities had their own plans for bringing the South back into the United States. The era that would come to be called Reconstruction was highlighted by the national government’s attempts to bring what they considered equality to the Southern states. Those attempts were met with resistance and even open hostility throughout the South.

John T. Lesley (TBHC Collection)

Though involved with Tampa’s resurgence in the 1880s, John T. Lesley is perhaps best-known for his political actions during the initial post-war period. In his return to civilian life, he played an instrumental role in how Tampa received the concept of Reconstruction.

Florida’s Reconstruction legislature passed a law in 1869 calling for the reorganization of municipal governments. Lesley and other former Confederates felt that this would lead to Republican and African American control of city government. In an effort to eliminate that threat, Lesley ran for mayor on the platform that if was elected he would abolish Tampa’s city government. He won in a landslide and, true to his word, he saw that the city’s charter lapsed, therefore ensuring that it would not fall into the hands of Carpetbaggers (Northerners) and Scalawags (Southerners aiding the Carpetbaggers). Tampa would not become a city again until July 1887.

Rodney Kite-Powell
Saunders Foundation Curator of History
Tampa Bay History Center