Citrus
Hernando
Pasco
Pinellas
Polk
Hillsborough
Manatee
Sarasota
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2019 | TAMPA BAY MAGAZINE 141
of Tampa, was settled in Pasco County
by the Mobley family of Georgia in the
mid-1800s, it wasn’t named Odessa until
the 1880s, when Peter Demens chose to
honor his native Russia. Odessa now
extends into Hillsborough County.
Plant City in Hillsborough County
could have been named Eversville in
honor of J.T. Evers, who developed it in
the late 1800s. However, Evers insisted
it be named in honor of Henry B. Plant,
whose Atlantic Coast Line Railroad line
between Sanford and Tampa freed the
area from isolation.
In 1889, Ozona, located between
Dunedin and Palm Harbor on St. Joseph
Sound in Pinellas County, was named
due to its abundant Gulf breezes or
ozone.
Belleair was the name selected by
Henry Plant to refer to how pure the
air was in the late 19th century when
he purchased the land for his hotel, now
called the Belleview Inn, which opened
in 1897. The town of Belleair in north
Pinellas County, which grew up around
the hotel, is located between Largo and
Clearwater and was incorporated in
1925.
Sarasota in Sarasota County officially
became a town in 1902.
Bradenton, located to Sarasota’s
south in Manatee County, was named
for Dr. Joseph Braden, who provided
refuge for his neighbors when needed.
Although a spelling error labeled it as
Braidentown in 1878, it stayed that way
until it was corrected to Bradentown in
1905. Another spelling change occurred
when the town merged with the adjacent
town of Manatee and became the city of
Bradenton in 1943.
St. Petersburg in southern Pinellas
County was named when its cofounders
John C. Williams and Peter
Demens supposedly flipped a coin for
the naming rights. Demens named it
after his hometown of Saint Petersburg,
Russia, while Williams named the town’s
first hotel The Detroit after his hometown
in Michigan.
Largo, located in Pinellas County and
originally an agricultural community, has
grown in population, geographical size
and character since its incorporation in
1905. Its name came from Lake Largo to
its east, which until the late 1800s with
the arrival of the railroads, had been
known as Lake Tolulu.
Lutz in Hillsborough and Pasco
counties, a little north of Tampa, is an
unincorporated area that was named for
sawmill owner Charles Lutz of nearby
Odessa, who installed railroad tracks in
1909 to transport his lumber from there
to Tampa, Tarpon Springs and beyond.
Zephyrhills in Pasco County started
out in the 1880s as developers’ dreams for
a planned community in an area centered
on a train station known as Abbott. Its
name may have changed to Jeffries Hills
for a time after its lead investor Capt.
H.B. Jeffries and a workman named Hill.
However, it became Zephyrhills, probably
because it was known for its “zephyr”
breezes.
The town of Oldsmar, northeast of
Tampa in Pinellas County, occupies
land purchased in 1916 by R.E. Olds, the
Michigan automobile manufacturer, to
establish the town of R.E. Olds-on-the-
Bay. The town there had become known
as Tampa Shores until 1937, when it was
named Oldsmar in honor of its founder.
Since Temple Terrace in Hillsborough
County was home to groves of Temple
oranges, the community took its name
from this variety of orange trees, which
are known for their dark green leaves and
golden fruit.
Gulf Beach developer Bert Archibald
named Madeira Beach in South Pinellas
County for Portugal’s wine-producing
island off the coast of Africa, since madera
is the Spanish word for wood, which aptly
described the forested beach area here.
Indian Shores on south Pinellas’
waterfront, was originally Indian Rocks
Beach South Shore, which made it the
longest name of a town in Pinellas County
until 1973, when the residents voted to
shorten it.
Kenneth City, a little north of
St. Petersburg in Pinellas County, was
incorporated in 1957 and developed by
Sidney Colen, who named the community
after his 6-year-old son Kenneth.
Apollo Beach, south of Tampa in
southern Hillsborough County, was
known as Tampa Beach before new owner
Francis Corr renamed it La Vida Beach.
The name Apollo Beach is credited to his
wife Dorothy Corr, who felt that naming
it for the Greek mythological god of light
and sun would give it a better image to
the sunlit beach community.
Weeki Wachee, a name give by the
Seminole Tribe of Native Americans,
means little spring or winding river. It
refers to Hernando County’s seemingly
bottomless, constantly 74-degree spring
of bubbling fresh water that is known for
its underwater mermaid shows.
Clearwater in North Pinellas County
was originally named Clearwater Harbor
due to a spring of water that bubbled up
in the Gulf near the shore, which made
the water there very clear and sparkly. 9