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Water Tower and Park - Page 2

Josiah Richardson's slogan "Josiah knows where the money grows," gave him instant recognition wherever he went. He was a dreamer who envisioned a resort for tourists built around the healing spring waters.

 

Josiah Richardson and Sulphur Springs Amusement Park; "Tampa's Coney Island"

Josiah Richardson and family crossing the old iron bridge at Sulphur Springs, circa 1917.
Josiah is leaning out in the back seat, to the left of him is his wife, Addie Richardson.  Riding in the front passenger seat is their daughter, Cecyl L. Richardson.  Her husband, Charles Graham Roudabush is driving.  Cecyl and Charles' son, Charles G. Roudabush Jr., is behind Josiah.  Absent from this photo is Josiah & Addie's son,  James T. Richardson, born Dec. 1899.  On all of the Richardson family censuses, James was single and in 1945, still living with his parents.  This census shows that James couldn't walk.

Later in 1917, Cecyl and Charles Sr. had a daughter named Addie Roudabush.  Charles Jr. attended Harvard College (class of 1937) and served in the Army in the mid 1940s.  He married Marjorie J. Chamness in 1948.  They had children Charles G. Roudabush III and Carla Chamness Roudabush.  The photo date is based on Charles G. Roudabush, Jr.'s birth year of 1916 and apparent age of 1 in the photo, along with absence of his sister who was born in 1917.  Photo courtesy of Penny Saver archives, Tampa, and Johnny Cinchett.
Place your cursor on the photo to see close up of the family.

In 1920, Richardson took a more active ownership role of Sulphur Springs park after years of leasing it to others and began to transform it.  From 1921 through 1924 he appears in city directories as the proprietor of the park.

   

Richardson is credited with building walks, elaborate bathhouses, adding restaurants, docks, a high-dive platform, water slide and toboggan slide. In addition to the pools, bathhouses and alligator farm, there was a dance pavilion, shops and a better shed for the streetcar that was frequented by tourists and Tampans alike. Richardson is also credited with building a beach and tourist cottages which were later converted to year-round homes as tourists made the community their permanent residence.  A vibrant commercial area grew up around the “Springs” and development flourished along Nebraska Avenue.


According to this 1923 photo, Josiah Richardson had this home in Brooksville, Florida.
Photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library, Burgert Bros. Cirkut camera collection.


Another view of Josiah Richardson's home n Brooksville, FL, 1923
Photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library, Burgert Bros. Cirkut camera collection.

 

The 1922 Sanborn Fire Insurance map at left clearly shows the facilities credited to Richardson already in place.  A red "R" marks the location of each restaurant.  The toboggan slide is marked with "TS." The rectangle at upper right on the map shows the general location of the roller coaster.  It may not have been included on this map because it was not a building. Numbers correspond to photos below.

According to a Historic American Buildings Survey in the 1980s by the National Park Service, by the turn of the century, facilities at Sulphur Springs had been built to accommodate recreational use.  Plant's railroad and the city's streetcar service to the Sulphur Springs area were considered to be a guarantee for further development for the northern area of of urban Hillsborough County. 

"It was not so until the 1920s land boom and a large purchase by Josiah Richardson that Sulphur Springs grew into a residential area.  To take advantage of the new growth, Richardson took over the declining recreational facilities and built a new pool, a bandstand, a water tower, and the Sulphur Springs hotel.  There was a roller coaster on the future site of the hotel."

 

 

The round pool was fed by the spring, it then flowed into the pool below it through a waterfall.

 

In these days, the rich and famous often frequented natural springs for their healing properties and recreation, but Sulphur Springs tended to attract a more working-class visitor, known as "tin-can tourists" because they often traveled in campers.

Burgert Brothers Collection photos below from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library
Numbers correspond to numbers on map showing location and direction where photo was taken.

1 Swimming pool & high-dive, ca. 192o 2 Streetcar shed, 1920 3 Crowd swimming race, 1920 4 Crowd at swimming pool, 1920 5 Swimming pool, catwalk, bath houses, 1920 6  Swimming pool, high-dive and slide, 1920 7 Swimming pool, high-dive, diving boards, 1921 8 Bathers on platform in pool, 1921
               
9 Alligator farm 1921 10 Alligator farm 1921 11 Toboggan ride, crowd on bridge 1922 12 Toboggan ride, crowd on bridge 1922 13 Crowd at pool, side view toboggan, 1922 14 Crowd at pool, side view toboggan, 1922 15 Crowd at pool, side view toboggan, 1922 16 Crowd at pool, side view toboggan, 1923


The Sulphur Springs Bank, 1921
The Burgerts sometimes touched up their photos on the request of their clients, by removing backgrounds and other distractions so the photo could be used in advertising and promotion.
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

The concrete bridge at Nebraska Avenue

In 1923 construction began on a new, concrete T-beam vehicular traffic bridge alongside the steel streetcar bridge, on what is now Nebraska Avenue. 

The original Nebraska Ave. in this area was renamed Van Dyke Place, after the family who lived there and operated a gas station there.

Van Dyke's Service Station with Hav-a-Tampa Cigar stand on side at 7800 Nebraska Avenue in Sulphur Springs, 1921

Burgert Bros. photos from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

 


 

 

 

 

Van Dyke's Service Station with Hav-a-Tampa Cigar stand on side at 7800 Nebraska Avenue in Sulphur Springs, 1921

Burgert Bros. photos from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

Nebraska Ave. bridge construction on the Hillsborough River at Sulphur Springs, Dec. 20, 1923
Burgert Bros. photos from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library





 


Nebraska Ave. bridge completed,  April 19, 1924
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

The Sulphur Springs Hotel (Arcade) - 8122 N. Nebraska Ave.

Richardson saw the springs as a mecca for vacationers of modest means, but refused to sacrifice quality in the development of its attractions.  In 1925 he began construction of the Sulphur Springs Arcade and completed it in 1927.  It was built on the former site of the park's wooden roller coaster.  The building housed a hotel, apartments, shops, post office, barbershop, sheriff, jail, and bank.  It was recognized in Ripley’s Believe it or Not as an entire city under one roof and the first mini mall in America.

1929 Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

The long, two-story double arcade along the front was the hotel's most conspicuous feature, which accounts for the hotel's popular name, Sulphur Springs Arcade.  It was a source of pride and convenience for the community for fifty years.  Richardson contracted an artist from Europe to decorate the interior of the Arcade, and for the sidewalk he pioneered terrazzo--marble chips laid over concrete that were buffed to a luminous sheen.  He spent lavishly to get what he wanted. He so disliked the original glass installed in the arcade's skylight that he replaced it with purple and blue stained glass from Egypt, "almost like a cloud in its design" according to Linda Hope, Sulphur Springs historian.

The reinforced concrete building faced east on Nebraska Avenue in a residential area north of the Hillsborough River and Sulphur Springs pool. and had a rectangular plan.  The foundation was spread footings. and the walls were masonry with plaster, painted white.  The front first floor arcade consisted of sixteen bays. The second floor arcade consisted of approximately forty-five bays. 

 

 

Porches on the ground floor arcade consisted of reinforced concrete elliptical arches supported on square columns. The second floor porch was similar, except that it had smaller arches. A pent roof was situated between the main flat roof and the second floors sheltering the first and second floor arcades.  The second floor had thirty-nine hotel rooms and fourteen apartments and offices. The original number of downstairs shops is not known.

 

Second floor porch with rocking chairs, Sept. 22, 1930. 

Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.

 

 


This Nov. 1, 1930 photo taken from the second pool looking towards the 8-ft. waterfall from the spring fed
first pool shows the bath houses on the right and the south side of the Arcade in the background.

Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

Inside on the ground floor were commercial shops along arcade.  On the ground floor was the central lobby, hotel rooms and apartments. The stairways were concrete with brass nosings and wrought-iron rails.  The floors consisted of 1" x 4" pine flooring.   The wall and ceiling finish was plaster on metal lath with twenty feet high ceilings in the ground floor shops.   The doors consisted of full panel doors and fifteen-light beveled glass in wood doors. Interior decorative features and trim consisted of ornamental plaster cornice with decorative plaster reliefs at ceiling light fixtures throughout building.  There was natural ventilation through skylights and electric lighting and cast-iron plumbing.

Hotel lobby, Jan. 9, 1934
Stairway on the right and skylights indicate this was the 2nd floor.
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sulphur Springs Hotel/Arcade
Jan. 9, 1934
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Suphur Springs Arcade, 8100 N. Nebraska Avenue, Aug. 6, 1934

Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Suphur Springs Arcade, 8100 N. Nebraska

Richardson Building, Sulphur Springs, near Tampa, Fla.  Hillsboro News Co. Postcard, 1934

State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/259636

 

 

 


 


The Silver Star ballroom at the Sulphur Springs Park dance pavilion, Jan 9, 1934
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.


Dance marathon contestants at Silver Star Ballroom in Sulphur Springs, Dec. 30, 1931
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hotel lobby, May 10, 1937
Stairway on the right and skylights indicate this was the 2nd floor.
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Sulphur Springs Hotel & Apartments, 1941
Robertson & Fresh photo from University of South Florida Digital Collections


The Sulphur Springs Arcade, 8100 N. Nebraska Avenue, March 27, 1945
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.


The Sulphur Springs Arcade, 8100 N. Nebraska Avenue, Feb. 26, 1946
Burgert Bros. photo from the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library.

In 1948 “WHBO-1050 Tampa," the first radio station in Florida to broadcast country music full time, came on the air in 1948 with 250 watts of power.  Its studios were located in the Sulphur Springs Arcade.


Sulphur Springs Hotel and Apartments and Maves five an dime, 1956
Photo courtesy of Johnny Cinchett, Tampa Vintage Signs & Scenes
 


 
Sulphur Springs Page 1 General description ● J. H. Krause ● The 1891 Iron Bridge ● Dr. Mills and his resort ● Circa 1900 images ● Josiah S. Richardson early years ● The streetcar line and the 1907 steel bridge ● Gaither & Henderson park improvements and Stomawa Mineral Water ● The park in Rinaldi's Guidebook of Tampa 1915 ●  Alligator farm
Sulphur Springs Page 2 Josiah Richardson's Sulphur Springs Amusement Park ● 1922 map of the park with photo positions marked ● Photos of the park in the "Roaring Twenties" ● Van Dyke's Service Station ● The 1924 Nebraska Avenue bridge ● Josiah Richardson's Sulphur Springs Hotel,  "The Arcade"
Sulphur Springs Page 3 Water tower history ● The hurricane and flood of 1933 ●  Richardson's loss and demise of the Arcade ●  The Tower Drive-In Theater
Sulphur Springs Page 4 Water tower recent photos and lighting ceremony
Sulphur Springs Page 5 Sulphur Springs Park and Gazebo, recent photos ● Information sources for all pages