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St. Petersburg Information
Although St. Petersburg was founded on the edge of Tampa Bay, the city struggled for decades to make its waterfront location a useful one. After Peter Demens brought his railroad line to St. Petersburg in 1888, settlers followed to fish and to farm. But as a commercial port of call for freight and passenger ships, the city wasn't an immediate success -- its harbors were too shallow.
In 1901, the St. Petersburg city council announced a plan to dredge a shipping channel but it was not until April 1906 that the War Department (the predecessor of the Department of Defense) approved a permit for the dredging. The channel was completed in January 1908.
A year earlier a petition by the U.S. Board of Engineers to develop a commercial harbor had been rejected. Undeterred, in November 1908, Capt. Thornton began dredging a sand bar in an effort to deepen the channel leading to the city dock. The following month, the St. Petersburg city council established the dimensions and boundaries of a possible harbor.
By April 1910, the St. Petersburg Independent reported, a channel 12 feet deep and 150 feet wide had been dredged at Bayboro (a government chart published that November indicated that the water in the channel was 17 feet deep). In June 1910, the city council received a permit from the War Department for work to begin on the harbor. The next summer, however, the federal government rejected proposed improvements that would make Bayboro a deep-water harbor following an unfavorable report by a government engineer.
In June 1911, the city's congressional representative, Stephen Sparkman, told city officials that before he could recommend spending money for a deep-water harbor, the city would have to own all the lots facing the basin and build and maintain the docks. Even the city wasn't sure where the deep-water harbor should be. A week after Rep. Sparkman detailed his reservations, the city council considered a plan to place the harbor off the railroad dock where Demens Landing is now located. Two weeks later, the council accepted a committee report favoring Bayboro. In August, the council disappointed supporters of a deep-water harbor by voting to put off making a decision. In March 1913, the council approved the Bayboro site. Two months later, the U.S. Board of Engineers and the Secretary of War approved plans for a deep-water harbor at Bayboro. |
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