Weedon Island | |
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Remains of the airport's waiting room [1] | |
Coordinates: 27°50′43.09″N82°36′5.35″W / 27.8453028°N 82.6014861°W Coordinates: 27°50′43.09″N82°36′5.35″W / 27.8453028°N 82.6014861°W | |
Country | United States |
State | Florida |
County | Pinellas |
Area code(s) | 727 |
GNIS feature ID | 292981 [2] |
Weedon Island is located in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. [2] It is located within the Weedon Island Preserve, in the northern portion of the city of St. Petersburg, on the western coast of Old Tampa Bay. Weedon Island is archaeologically significant as it serves as a type-site for the Weeden Island Culture. Weedon Island is named for its early owner Dr. Leslie Weedon.
Former confederate soldier Captain W. B. Henderson purchased the land that was to become Weedon Island in 1886 with war bonds. When Captain Henderson's daughter Blanche married Dr. Leslie Weedon in 1898, the Captain gave the new couple the Island as a wedding present. Weedon Island was only an island in high tide and during low tide it was connected to the peninsula. Leslie Weedon and his family spent the weekends here from nearby Tampa. At that time there was no bridges across Tampa Bay so they traveled here with their belongings by boat and brought everything back home for the week days. Another family had lived here, The Benjamins who lived on nearby Benjamin Island. Henry R. Benjamin bought Benjamin Island for $1,000 (worth $23,000 in 2016) from Captain W. B. Henderson on April 30, 1878. He kept the land for two years and sold it to his son George M. Benjamin.
In 1923–24 the island was visited by a Florida archaeologist, Dr. Leslie Weedon preserved Indian mounds here and hoped that they would one day be a place of public heritage. During the winter of 1923–24 Prof. J. Walter Fewkes the chief of the Bureau of American Ethnology directed excavations of the mounds here. He had concluded there were two waves of migration, the first one of unknown origin and the second one was thought to be from Georgia because the mounds there were very similar. The name for the Weeden Island Culture comes from the island itself.
In 1934, Florida land boom developer Eugene M. Elliot wanted to make the residential community but failed. [3]
The San Reno Club did manage to get built by one of his associates, Fred Blair, opening the Sky Harbor Airport (by the 1930s it was known as Grand Central Airport) in 1926. The airport was served by Pitcairn a predecessor of Eastern Air Lines taking passengers to places such as Miami, New York City and Washington, D.C. until the 1930s. On January 27, 1913 the Eastern Air Transport (Eastern Airlines) moved its headquarters here, making it a very busy airport. On February 4, 1927 a man on a motorcycle had reported flames coming out of the island. The next morning an investigation was started and found one dead body and a blood-stained ax. This soon started many different trials and the victim that had died in the shed was identified as George W. Dash, a printer. The man accused of murdering the man and burning down the shed was William Cole. Cole was tried and convicted of murder and pleaded and was freed two years later. He also spent approximately six months in the Pinellas County Jail. [3]
The Weedon Island soon became a popular place for many Hollywood celebrities. In the 1930s the San Reno Club was made into a movie studio which soon burned down and a new one built nearby. In 1933 Sun Haven Studios made three movies Chloe, Playthings of Desire and Hired Wife here. Many performers included: Buster Keaton, Olive Borden, Greta Nissen, James Kirkwood with locals being extras.
In the mid 1930s a proposal was to make the island a National park by Pinellas County and St. Petersburg and a committee was formed and sent to Washington, D.C. to meet with the head of the National Park Service at the time, Arno B. Cammerer. The committee had planned that the National Park Service would recognize it as de Soto's official landing site. In 1937, John R. Swanton, an ethnologist and chairman from Harvard University who went on to be part of the Smithsonian Institution's De Soto Commission, decided to research the locations of de Soto's landing site. The exact location was not determined but it was thought to have been at the Little Manatee River. The island did not get the monument and did not become a protected reserve. The landing site of de Soto is still debated today.
During World War II, the island's airport was converted into a military base due to a surge in aircraft demand.
The demand during World War II for commercial flights was declining and another contributing factor was that the bridge burned down in 1953. In 1965 and 1970, two teenagers were killed in a car accident on the bridge. The airport soon became vandalized and completely destroyed. In 1955, the Florida Power Corporation (Progress Energy) bought most of the northern end of the island to build a power plant. In 1960, a temporary salt water conversion plant was built here by Progress Energy, Cornell University and the federal government which operated for four years and made 35,000–50,000 gallons of fresh water a day. [4] In 1970 the Greek Oil Tanker Dellan Apollon almost ran aground while trying to dock at the power plant on the island. By the early 1970s the last commercial land owners had sold the land, showing there was no future for commercial development and only the energy facility was left alone and the rest of the island was converted to a nature preserve. On March 25, 2000 on a clear day a helicopter was returning form St. Joseph's Hospital in Tampa and hit a radio tower guy wire and crashed into the mangroves on the island with all three people on board.
Today, the island is a preserve. [1]
Pinellas County is located on the west central coast of the state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the population was 916,542. The county is part of the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area. Clearwater is the county seat, and St. Petersburg is the largest city and the largest city in Florida that is not a county seat.
Tierra Verde is a census-designated place (CDP) in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The population was 3,721 at the 2010 census. The community is located on an island near the entrance of Tampa Bay, and is connected by the bridges of the Pinellas Bayway to both St. Petersburg and St. Pete Beach. At the southern end of Tierra Verde is Fort De Soto, a county park.
St. Pete–Clearwater International Airport is a public/military airport in Pinellas County, Florida serving the Tampa Bay Area. It is right on the northeast municipal boundary of Pinellas Park, 9 miles (14 km) north of downtown St. Petersburg, 7 miles (11 km) southeast of Clearwater, and 17 miles (27 km) southwest of Tampa.
Tampa Bay is a large natural harbor and shallow estuary connected to the Gulf of Mexico on the west central coast of Florida, comprising Hillsborough Bay, McKay Bay, Old Tampa Bay, Middle Tampa Bay, and Lower Tampa Bay. The largest freshwater inflow into the bay is the Hillsborough River, which flows into Hillsborough Bay in downtown Tampa. Many other smaller rivers and streams also flow into Tampa Bay, resulting in a large watershed area.
Letchworth Mounds Archaeological State Park is a 188.2 acre Florida State Park that preserves the state's tallest prehistoric, Native American ceremonial earthwork mound, which is 46 feet (14 m) high. It is estimated to have been built 1100 to 1800 years ago. This is one of three major surviving mound complexes in the Florida Panhandle. It is believed to have been built by the Weedon Island Culture, Native Americans who lived in North Florida. The hierarchical society planned and constructed massive earthwork mounds as expression of its religious and political system.
Tocobaga was the name of a chiefdom, its chief, and its principal town during the 16th century. The chiefdom was centered around the northern end of Old Tampa Bay, the arm of Tampa Bay that extends between the present-day city of Tampa and northern Pinellas County. The exact location of the principal town is believed to be the archeological Safety Harbor Site, which gives its name to the Safety Harbor culture, of which the Tocobaga are the most well-known group.
South-southwest of St. Petersburg, Florida, Fort De Soto Park is a park operated by Pinellas County on five offshore keys, or islands: Madelaine Key, St. Jean Key, St. Christopher Key, Bonne Fortune Key and the main island, Mullet Key. The keys are connected by either bridge or causeway. The island group is accessible by toll road from the mainland. Historically, the islands were used for military fortifications; remnants and a museum exhibit this history. Two piers, beaches, picnic area, hiking trails, bicycling trails, kayak trail, and a ferry to Egmont Key State Park are available.
The Weeden Island Cultures are a group of related archaeological cultures that existed during the Late Woodland period of the North American Southeast. The name for this group of cultures was derived from the Weedon Island site in Old Tampa Bay in Pinellas County.
The modern history of Tampa, Florida, can be traced to the founding of Fort Brooke at the mouth of the Hillsborough River in today's downtown in 1824, soon after the United States had taken possession of Florida from Spain. The outpost brought a small population of civilians to the area, and the town of Tampa was first incorporated in 1855.
The Alachua culture is a Late Woodland Southeast period archaeological culture in north-central Florida, dating from around 600 to 1700. It is found in an area roughly corresponding to present-day Alachua County, the northern half of Marion County and the western part of Putnam County. It was preceded by the Cades Pond culture, which inhabited approximately the same area.
The Fort Walton culture is the term used by archaeologists for a late prehistoric Native American archaeological culture that flourished in southeastern North America from approximately 1200~1500 CE and is associated with the historic Apalachee people.
The Big Mound Key-Boggess Ridge Archeological District is a historic site near Placida, Florida. It is located southeast of Placida, on Big Mound Key. On December 3, 1990, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.
The Jungle Prada Site is an archaeological site featuring Indigenous Tocobaga mounds and the location of the historical Narváez expedition landing. The Jungle Prada site spans public and private property, including the Jungle Prada de Narvaez city park, in St. Petersburg of Pinellas County, western coastal Florida, in the Southern United States.
The Weedon Island Preserve is a 3,190 acre natural area situated along the western shore of Tampa Bay, and located on 1800 Weedon Drive NE. St. Petersburg, Florida, United States. It is predominately an estuarine preserve composed of upland and aquatic ecosystems such as mangrove forests, pine/scrubby flatwoods, and maritime hammock, and is home to a variety of native wildlife. The preserve is also a designated archaeological area with several shell mounds identified on the property that provide evidence of early peoples who inhabited the land for thousands of years.
Charlotte Harbor Estuary, the second largest bay in Florida, is located on the Gulf of Mexico coast of west Florida, mostly (2/3) in Charlotte County, Florida with the remaining 1/3 in Lee County. The harbor's mouth is located behind Gasparilla Island, one of the many coastal barrier islands on the southwest coast of Florida, with access from the Gulf of Mexico through the Boca Grande Pass between Gasparilla Island on the north and Lacosta Island on the south. Charlotte Harbor covers about 270 sq mi (700 km2)
The Safety Harbor culture was an archaeological culture practiced by Native Americans living on the central Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula, from about 900 CE until after 1700. The Safety Harbor culture is defined by the presence of Safety Harbor ceramics in burial mounds. The culture is named after the Safety Harbor Site, which is close to the center of the culture area. The Safety Harbor Site is the probable location of the chief town of the Tocobaga, the best known of the groups practicing the Safety Harbor culture.
This is a timeline of the U.S. state of Florida.
The Manasota culture was an archaeological culture that was practiced on the central Gulf coast of the Florida peninsula from about 500 BCE until about 900, when it developed into the Safety Harbor culture. From about 300 to 700 the Manasota culture adopted the ceremonial ceramics and burial practices of the Weeden Island cultures of northern Florida and adjacent Alabama and Georgia.
The Pensacola culture was a regional variation of the Mississippian culture along the Gulf Coast of the United States that lasted from 1100 to 1700 CE. The archaeological culture covers an area stretching from a transitional Pensacola/Fort Walton culture zone at Choctawhatchee Bay in Florida to the eastern side of the Mississippi River Delta near Biloxi, Mississippi, with the majority of its sites located along Mobile Bay in the Mobile-Tensaw River Delta. Sites for the culture stretched inland, north into the southern Tombigee and Alabama River valleys, as far as the vicinity of Selma, Alabama.
William Benton Henderson was a cattleman, merchant, and prominent figure in the history of Tampa, Florida. He is the namesake of Henderson Boulevard and Henderson Avenue as well as the former W. B. Henderson Elementary School.
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