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The Tocobaga built shell-mound towns around Tampa Bay for centuries before Europe arrived. Their story, told for kids, and where families can stand in it.
Philippe Park in Safety Harbor holds the Tampa Bay region's largest temple mound, Florida's first grapefruit grove, and a free afternoon of real history.
José Gaspar, Tampa's famous pirate, almost certainly never existed. How the legend was invented and why the city celebrates anyway.
Egmont Key packs an 1858 lighthouse, Fort Dade's ruins, brick ghost-town streets, and a ferry ride with dolphins into Tampa Bay's best history field trip.
In 1905, Greek divers from the Dodecanese islands turned Tarpon Springs into the sponge capital of the world. The story, and the family day at the docks.
Ybor City was the cigar capital of the world, built by Cuban, Spanish, and Italian immigrants. The family version: lectores, Cuban bread, and chickens.
Fort De Soto's Battery Laidley holds the last four 12-inch seacoast mortars of their kind in the continental U.S. The kid-approved history walk.
In 1528, the Narváez expedition landed near today's St. Petersburg with 300 men. Four survived. The astonishing story that began on our shoreline.
Tampa may mean sticks of fire, Pinellas is Spanish for point of pines, and Pass-a-Grille honors grilling fishermen. Local place names, decoded for kids.
Oranges built Florida: Spanish seeds, Odet Philippe's grapefruit, the Great Freeze, and a 95 percent decline kids can still taste the last chapters of.
