Street Railways Of St. Petersburg Florida By James Buck 1983 Soft Cover
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RailroadTreasures offers the following item: Street Railways of St. Petersburg Florida By James Buck 1983 Soft Cover Street Railways of St. Petersburg Florida By James Buckley 48 Pages Copyright 1983
PREFACESt. Petersburg is not an old city. The first settler arrived in 1873. General John C. Williams acquired about 1600 acres on what was then Point Pinellas (now downtown St. Petersburg) in 1876, and moved his family there in 1879. He tried farming briefly, but the sa...ndy soil was unsuited to northern crops. He gave up in 1881 and took his family back north. However, he kept title to the land.After the Civil War, the state of Florida was hopelessly in debt. To raise funds to apply against this debt, the state sold four million acres of state lands for $1, 000, 000 in 1881 to Hamilton Disston, a wealthy Philadelphia saw manufacturer. The purchase included over 30, 000 acres on Point Pinellas.Disston formed the Disston City Land Co. and his brother, Jacob, laid out Disston City on the southern edge of the peninsula near what is now Gulfport. Spread over 12, 000 acres, the city as platted took in everything in the lower peninsula not owned by Williams, plus a small section of Big Bayou. Streets and boulevards were laid out, most of them 100 feet wide. The 26-room Waldorf Hotel was opened in 1884, along with a wharf, warehouse three stores, and a number of homes. The Disstons poured thousands of dollars into promotion, advertising heavily in Northern newspapers. Scores of five- and ten-acre farm tracts were sold. A steamer, the Mary Disston made regular trips from Tampa and Cedar Key. By 1886, the new city appeared to be well on its way.What the young city needed was a railroad. Peter A. Demens was then promoting the narrow-gauge Orange Belt Railroad Co. and planned to terminate it at Mullet Key, on Deep Water on the Gulf of Mexico. The Disstons offered Demens 25 percent of all the land he needed if he terminated the railroad at Disston City instead. Instead, Demens made a deal with Williams, who deeded over 500 acres on Tampa Bay to the railroad. It was completed in 1888 and a townsite established on William's property. Thus St. Petersburg was born. The late Walter Fuller felt that Jacob Disston was more interested in the Mary Disston than in rail connections.The loss of the railroad ruined Disston City. When Williams died in 1892, St. Petersburg was a small town of 273 inhabitants at the end of the railroad. The real guiding light of the city was Frank Allston Davis of Philadelphia, who came to Florida for his health in 1890, settling in Tarpon Springs. Later he came to St. Petersburg. Davis admit ted to being an impractical dreamer, but determined to make St. Petersburg into a great city. He had his hands in everything, more than a dozen firms being formed as subsidiaries of the St. Petersburg Investment Co. One of these was the St. Petersburg and Gulf Railway Co. All of his companies, including the car line, failed. Nevertheless, Davis gave the city the things which made its future growth possible and put it ahead of other west coast resort towns in its development.There were several early proposals to build an electric railway from St. Petersburg to Disston City, beginning as early as 1891. In December 1896, Captain John F. Chase, representing a Philadelphia syndicate, applied for a franchise to build an electric light plant and a car line to Disston City. Davis, in the meantime, proposed a line to Tampa in 1896 and in February 1897 secured a franchise granting all the rights which Chase had wanted, plus a water system. The ordinance was submitted to the voters and passed unanimously.Public rail service did not appear until December 1901 when a horse car line was built by the firm of King and Chase from the foot of Brantley Dock out to the mooring where their ship, the Gertrude Dudley docked. It was used by passengers going to and from the ship. The newspaper said that it would not be known for its beauty or construction, being hardly more than a flat car pulled by one horse, but it was a satisfactory solution until the new channel was dug permitting the Gertrude Dudley to come into the city.Davis finally began building his car line in 1902. He expected no direct profit and he and his partners subsidized it with the expectation of profit from people who would purchase his building lots in Disston City. In 1904, most of the villagers called it foolhardy. However, over the next decade, the line grew as real estate speculators used it to haul customers to their fancy-priced lots.The city acquired the system in 1919 after its sale for scrap was threatened. It rebuilt and expanded the system, buying new cars and building a new barn and shop facilities. It built a power plant to provide municipal power requirements, much of the capacity being used for the railway. The city also ran buses which provided infrequent service to remote, thinly-populated suburban areas.Through the depression years, the car fares helped to keep the city alive. In wartime, it brought a bonanza in a city thronged with soldiers and sailors training at nearby bases. The Line cost the city S175, 000 which was repaid many times over. In 1949, the Last rails came up and buses took over.
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