An underwater manatee painting by George Konstantinidis is displayed in the main entrance foyer of the museum. The waters of Spring Bayou surrounding Craig Park and the Heritage Museum provide a safe haven for manatees.

Craig Park was home to Mrs. Keeney-Beekman in the 1890s and today is home to the Heritage Museum.

A City Born on the Bayou

In 1876 S.W. Ormond of South Carolina and his teenage daughter Mary became the first settlers of what is now Tarpon Springs, building a cabin near Spring Bayou. One year later a lone Joshua Boyers left Nassau to see the world aboard his sloop. He eventually docked by the Ormand cabin, became a welcome guest, built a second cabin and married young Mary.

It was Mary who in 1879 proposed their tiny two-cabin settlement be named Tarpon Springs, after the giant tarpon that jumped and splashed in the bayou. This was the very beginning of Tarpon Springs' colorful evolution into a full -fledged city.

The home of Mary and Joshua Boyer is now part of the collection of historical buildings in the Heritage Park Museum in Largo, Florida.

The first people to enter Florida some 12,000 years ago were nomads, following the big game animals crucial to their survival. In earthen mounds they sometimes buried their dead along with elaborate pottery and other goods. One such mound, the Safford Mound, was discovered in the late 1800s, east of Pinellas Avenue and near the Anclote River. The mound was a low circular hill, about 128 feet across and some 6 feet high, covered with grass, brush and tall pines. First excavated in 1879, the mound was more thoroughly investigated 1896. It contained more than 600 skeletons and a wide variety of pottery illustrating the changes in lifestyle and culture of these prehistoric people. The Safford Mound was razed in the 1920's to make room for a real estate development.

Two larger platform mounds were found on the Anclote River's north bank. The entire river area is also rich in Archaic remains such as spear and arrow points, awls, scrapers, knives and stone clubs.

African-Americans in Tarpon Springs

Some two decades after the Civil War, Tarpon Springs began to see a quiet influx of African-American residents. First living near the lumber mills in cabins built for them, they later owned their own homes with gardens and a few farm animals. Some of the men worked the early sponge industry, as sponge hookers and crew men. The women often worked as much-in-demand cooks, housemaids, laundresses, nursemainds and midwives.

A few glimpses of the lives of these African-American Tarponites can be seen in the many African-American dances reported on by the town's first newspaper in 1884. There was fiddle and tambourine-playing and no doubt much fun to be had. For many years African-Americans celebrated January 1 as Emancipation Day, complete with parade and floats.

Sponge market at Bailey's Bluff, where services were held on Sunday.

Tarpon Springs soon flourished as a winter resort. The 1890s saw the development of the "Golden Crescent," when a dozen millionaires and other wealthy Northerners built a half-circle of impressive Victorian homes around Spring Bayou. Each fall the homeowners descended on the town in a splendid flurry, coming in their yachts or private railroad cars with children and governesses in tow. During the mild winters the families sailed, fished, danced, dined, picnicked and played golf, cards and croquet at the Yacht Club.

Along with about five hundred year-round townspeople, these early Tarponites developed Tarpon Springs' quaint downtown, much of which still stands today. The historic buildings were once home to theaters, the Atlantic Coastline Railroad Depot, and the old Reliable Drug Store, among other thriving businesses.

In the 1920's tourism prospered, as did the Florida real estate boom. Business property was selling for a thousand dollars per front foot in downtown, outsiders were pumping money into the city, and the most prestigious single development to date was built, the $1.5 million Sunset Hills Country Club complete with club house, golf course, yacht harbor and paddock.

Pivotal 1887

In January of 1887 Tarpon Springs had its name, a cluster of homes and stores, but no official identity. By February, a group of registered voters agreed to incorporate Tarpon Springs as a city of Florida in Hillsborough County. (In 1911 Tarpon Springs became part of the new Pinellas County.)

Also in 1887, at a cost of $35,000, a lighthouse was built on Anclote Key by order of President Grover Cleveland. The tall beacon was part of the government's mission to define and protect its mainland shores via a chain of such structures. The Anclote lighthouse became a focal point for pleasure trips, such as sunny picnics on the island and nighttime sails, as well as a beacon to sponge and shipping boats seen some 16 miles at sea.

Having withstood immense storms, the lighthouse still stands tall today, guiding fishing boats and illuminating the Intracoastal Waterway. It is being restored with funding provided by the State of Florida.

The man who changed Tarpon Springs into a "spongetown" was John King Cheyney, son of a rich Philadelphia Quaker. Keeping an eye on his father's Florida interests, he cruised around the Gulf a good deal. In Key West he found the new industry he was looking for -sponges. In 1891 Cheyney formed the Anclote and Rock Island Sponge Company with offices in Philadelphia and Tarpon Springs. Cheyney later hired John Cocoris, a young Greek sponge buyer with technical expertise. In 1905 Cocoris convinced Cheyney to bring his brothers and other Greek divers to Tarpon Springs. With their advanced rubberized diving suits, copper helmets and pumped in air, the divers brought in nearly four times as many sponges per man per hour than harvesters using the hook method. The deepwater sponges were of a finer quality than those from the shallow waters harvested by the hook boat men and the untouched beds went on for miles.