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St. Petersburg, Florida

Souvenir of St. Petersburg, Florida

Circa 1920s

Not only a large and energetically growing city awaits the tourist at St. Petersburg, one of the beauty spots of the Florida west coast, but also a variety of entertainment which is seldom equaled and probably never exceeded. It is an admitted fact that with the exception of ice sports and polo, there is no recognized sport or entertainment not available in St. Petersburg. Among those most featured are big league baseball, when the major league teams are in training; tennis; golf on many splendid courses, including Walter Hagen's Pasadena course, the Lakewood and Coffee Pot courses; roque, lawn bowling and shuffle-board, with many courts under civic supervision and patronage; horseshoe pitching, chess and checker clubs.

There are 150 miles of paved streets, parkways and boulevards within the city limits, and St. Petersburg is approached either via the Pinellas Peninsula route from Clearwater and Belleair or via the Gandy Bridge from Tampa over splendid causeways. The Gandy Bridge is an engineering achievement of note, being six miles long and containing 170,000 bags of cement and using 17,000 piles for support. It crosses Tampa Bay and gives the motorists one of Florida's most beautiful views, as well as reducing the distance between the two cities from 40 to 19 miles.

Arriving in the Sunshine City you find a choice of a score of palatial hotels, a hundred or more of smaller hostelries and a whole city hospitably ready to welcome the tourist at reasonable cost for a winter visit. There are theatres, occasional opera visitations, and two daily concerts in Williams Park by the Royal Highlanders' Band which by reason of its annual tour in the city-owned Pullman car "Sunshine" has become nationally famous.

The waterfront on the harbor shore is bordered by a palm shaded, smooth paved shore drive, and the drive down the long municipal pier which extends out into Tampa Bay is one of the favorite excursions. There are yacht basins for visitors, and a spacious yacht club, and commercial lines operate steamers to Tampa, Bradenton, Fort Myers and other points.

Central Avenue and adjacent streets are famous for their "green benches", which are placed in long rows under the shade of trees and awnings, where pedestrians may spend quiet hours resting or talking with friends.

Fishing is one of the Sunshine City's best forms of entertainment. Hundreds of the finny creatures are caught daily from the piers and in the creeks, and deep water fishermen find plenty of boats ready to take them out into the gulf waters for the monster fish which abound there.

Mirror Lake Park is also an attraction, with its beautiful setting in typical tropical landscape effect, surrounding the tennis, roque, lawn bowling and shuffle-board course.

St. Petersburg is the central point for many fine motor trips which are available over splendid roads and each year is the Mecca of thousands of motorists.

Source:
Excerpt from "Souvenir of St. Petersburg, Florida: The Sunshine City" Published circa 1920s by Asheville Postcard Company, Asheville, N.C.

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