CAPTURED SLAVER OFF INDIAN KEY- 1860

In 1859, U.S. Government ships were ordered to enforce the laws against the slave trade. In that campaign, three ships with 1,432 enslaved Africans aboard were brought into Key West in May 1860. Imagine the day Indian Key’s tiny population of 13 saw the U.S. sail assisted steamship Mohawk arrive off the island with one [...]
U.S. MARITIME SERVICES TRAINING CENTER | St. PETERSBURG, FL

The Unites States Maritime Services Training Center at Bayboro Harbor in St. Petersburg, Floirda opened as an active training center for the Merchant Marine in 1941 and was one of the largest training facilities along the southern coast of the United States. Over twenty thousand cadets as young as 17½ arrived in St, Petersburg [...]
MARINELAND OF FLORIDA

Marine Studios of Florida | Established 1938 Industrialist family descendants such as W. Douglas Burden (the great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt), Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (cousin of W. Douglas Burden), Sherman Pratt (a descendent of a partner of Standard Oil), and Ilia Tolstoy (grandson of Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy) built the world’s first Oceanarium and the first underwater [...]
RECREATIONAL DIVING IN THE FLORIDA KEYS
TARPON SPRINGS SPONGE DIVING
FLORIDA’S FOSSILS

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PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY VI

Each Tampa Bay Pilot, insofar as the performance of his duties as a pilot is concerned, is a free-agent and is answerable only to the Board of Pilot Commissioners and/or the US Coast Guard. He does, however, on all other matters work within the framework of certain rules and regulations, which govern our association. He [...]

PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY V

As the Tampa Bay Pilots grew in size, and perhaps for other reasons, its members decided to establish their own office. Accordingly, in the latter part of 1922 or early 1923, they employed Charles M. Moore, son of the former light keeper of Egmont Key lighthouse He opened their office and served as agent, office [...]

PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY IV

As suggested earlier, the beginning of piloting on Tampa Bay in the relatively modern era appears to have been performed on an individual basis. Shortly before the Jacksonville, Tampa and Key West Railway Company began construction of their narrow-gauge railroad from Kissimmee to Tampa on February 25, 1882, a drifter appeared on the Tampa scene. [...]

PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY III

Out of this special and diverse abundance of regulation emerged Chapter 1670, Laws of Florida, which was the first comprehensive general law governing pilots, and which provided the framework of our present Chapter 310, Title 21, Florida Statutes. The practical effect of these laws, both State and Federal, is that State pilots operate under a dual [...]

PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY II

Moving along in time it is found that the 1840 Federal census of Hillsborough County lists the following who gave their occupation as pilot: Samuel Bishop, for whom Bishop Harbor on the east side of Tampa Bay may have been named, Louis Covacevich, John Gomez, Alexander Green, and James Kelly. Hillsborough County, formed in 1834, then [...]

PILOTS AND PILOTING ON TAMPA BAY

By John D. Ware In the year 1969, one thousand nine hundred and twenty-seven (1927) vessels, exclusive of tugs and barges, called at the many facilities of the greater port of Tampa. The Tampa Bay Pilots handled virtually all of these in which almost 20 million tons of cargo were transported. They ranged in size [...]

CAPTURED SLAVER OFF INDIAN KEY- 1860

U.S. MARITIME SERVICES TRAINING CENTER | St. PETERSBURG, FL

MARINELAND OF FLORIDA

RECREATIONAL DIVING IN THE FLORIDA KEYS

TARPON SPRINGS SPONGE DIVING

FLORIDA’S FOSSILS