THIS TABLE IS 1250 PX WIDE

THE BENTLEY GRAY BUILDING

The Bentley-Gray building, Mar. 15, 1924.  View from Zack and Pierce Street.

This building was completed in Jan. 1924 and the dry goods giant moved in in early Feb. 1924.

Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

The architect was James Knox Taylor, designer of the Federal building and numerous others in Washington D.C.

The Bentley Gray company was organized and received its charter on Dec. 1, 1899.  Frank Bentley Sr. was the first president and still was at the time this building opened.  W. B. Gray was the first secretary and treasurer of the company, which started with capital assets of $25,000.  Gray retired from the company around 1909 and had no more ties to it except for the name, which was continued due to the reputation of the company's "Ben-Gray-Co" products.

BENTLEY GRAY MOVES OUT TO NEW BUILDING AT 900 TWIGGS

In Nov. 1933, this became the home of the newly formed Southern Brewing Co., makers of SB beer.  The company formed when the Volstead (Prohibition) act was repealed by the 21st Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

The above image is excerpts of elements of the full page ad rearranged and resized.
See the full page ad as it appeared.

BELOW:  A 1937 view of the Southern Brewing building from the rear at Polk & Pierce streets.  The SB building can be seen at far right along with their SB Beer bottle water tank on top of the Celo bottling plant in the foreground.  Celo was a soft drink made from celery and was quite popular in these years.

Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

BELOW:  March 28, 1939, Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

BELOW: Aug. 3, 1944 - The Southern Brewing Co. building can be seen at far left.
Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

BELOW:  Feb. 29, 1948, Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

BELOW:  Aug. 10, 1955, Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.
   

BELOW:  Apr, 21, 1964 Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

THE CONVENT & ACADEMY
OF THE HOLY NAMES

The Convent and Academy of the Holy Names, abandoned, Sep. 1925.  View from the Bentley Gray building. Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

Built in 1891 with over 500,000 bricks from Macon, Ga.  The west wing expanded to Morgan St (far right side in photo) in Nov. 1908.  Demolished in Oct. 1925 and replaced by Tampa's City Markets building in 1927.

See previous page for details and many more photos.

ST. ANDREW'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH

Built in 1907, still in use today.

St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church was established in Tampa in 1871. Its first service was held in the hospital building at Fort Brooke. A wooden church was erected in 1883 on the city block bounded by Marion, Twiggs, Morgan, and Madison Streets, which had been purchased by St. Andrew’s Guild in 1877.

Photo courtesy of the Robertson & Fresh photo collection at the University of So. Florida digital collections.

A parish school house and rectory were soon added to the site. In 1904, ground was broken for the present church seen above.  Local architects Miller & Kennard designed the Mediterranean Revival style building completed in 1907. The new structure incorporated several stained glass windows, the communion rail and lectern from the original church. Over the years, parishioners have made numerous gifts to complete the interior decoration of the building.

(Above history and photo at left courtesy of the church website.)

#3

THE WESTERN UNION BUILDING

The map view is of a small portion of the rear of the rooftop opposite from this corner seen here.

Western Union building at Marion & Twiggs St. circa late 1930s to early 1940s.

Photo courtesy of the Robertson & Fresh photo collection at the University of So. Florida digital collections.

Construction by Boston's Stone & Webster began in late Jan. 1929 at a cost of $116k for the site and approx. $250k for the building which fronted 65 ft. along Twiggs and 90 ft. along Marion St.

Total cost including "a lot of expensive equipment" was to be around $750k.

The building itself was completed, inspected and approved on Oct. 11, 1929 but it was estimated that it would take until Feb. 1930 to receive and install all the new equipment before the building could be occupied. The new building represented a total investment of about $1M.

Delays in the manufacture, receiving and installation of the complex new equipment delayed the start of operations until May 19, 1930 when Western Union finally transferred communications from the old office to the new building.

THE TAMPA TERRACE HOTEL

Photo courtesy of the Robertson & Fresh photo collection at the University of So. Florida digital collections.

Built in 1925 by Atlanta developers, the twelve-story 200-room hotel closed in Aug. 1965 and bit the dust in 1967.

Construction on the foundation for the hotel began in early April of 1924 by Adair & Senter Construction Co. of Atlanta.  The 14-story**  building was expected to cost between $850k and $1M.  Work on the steel structure began in mid September that year by the Nashville Bridge Co.  By early Dec 1924, there were four more stories of iron work to be completed and was expected to be finished by the end of the year by a work force of 150 men.   (**Throughout its construction, newspaper articles varied in the number of floors from 12 to 14.  Ultimately, it was 12 actual stories, but still described as being "thirteen stories high.") 

The Tampa Terrace Hotel at 411 N. Florida Ave. at Lafayette St., circa early 1940s
L to R:  Hotel Floridan, Sacred Heart church, Tampa College/Jesuit High School, Elks Lodge, Hotel Tampa Terrace
  Robertson & Fresh photo from the USF Digital Collection.

Tampa Terrace Hotel corridor
  Robertson & Fresh photo from the USF Digital Collection.

 A Lobby at the Tampa Terrace Hotel
Robertson & Fresh photo from the USF Digital Collection.

The Palm Room at the Tampa Terrace Hotel, circa 1935
Robertson & Fresh photo from the USF Digital Collection.

Above souvenir courtesy of Steve Cannella.
Steve says, "My Uncle, George Cannella is sitting on the left, and I believe the girl is Pauline Cacciatore.
Her brother is Phillip Cacciatore, who owns "Cacciatore's" Meat market and grocery on Hanley Road."

Florida Avenue and Lafayette St. (Kennedy Blvd.) today.

THE ELKS CLUB (B.P.O.E.)

The map view is from the rear, with #5 being the roof terrace patio and #8 the rooftop elevator housing.

Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the Tampa Hillsborough Co. Public Library Cooperative.

Close ups of the elk statue on the left and the bus station on the right from the above photo.

 Below:  The main hall at the Elks Club, 1935
Robertson & Fresh photo courtesy of the University of So. Florida digital collections.
 

What's there today--Northern Trust Bank                                           

The hotel was completed in January 1915.  The formal opening took place on Jan. 16, 1915.

AT LEFT: 1922 Burgert Bros courtesy of THCPLC.
Intersection of Jackson (200 block) and Franklin (200-300 blocks) streets looking northwest toward Bay View Hotel

The Bay View was the first Tampa building to be demolished with explosives.

Today, the former site of the Bay View Hotel is the middle section of the parking garage fronting Jackson St. at the
rear of the Fifth Third Bank Building fronting 201 E. Kennedy Blvd. on the north side of the block.
 

TAMPA ELECTRIC CO. W. JACKSON ST. PLANT

The new plant originally was referred to as the "West Jackson Street plant" and was renamed the Peter O. Knight Station in 1969.   Knight is credited with bringing the first electric street car system and power stations to Tampa, as the President of Tampa Electric Co. in these early years.  The new plant's smoke stack was nearly five feet in diameter and almost 200 feet tall. 

Initially, the plant was built of lumber, 100 ft. long by 36 ft wide, with later expansion planned for a brick structure of 100 x 100 ft enclosing the original plant, as well as more and larger machinery.  A. O. Bridges of Stone & Webster, the owners of the company, installed two immense brick furnaces supporting two 350 H.P. boilers.  A 10,000 gal. tank was built to contain water for fire protection.    The boiler room was seven feet above high tide and used coal for fuel.  On the 2nd floor there was installed the engine and dynamo to generate the electricity.  Connection between the two was direct, not by belts, so no loss of energy would occur due to belt slippage.  Future plans were to add a mammoth 800 H.P. engine with another furnace and smoke stack, which would power a number of new dynamos which were expected to provide enough power for many years.

In 1907 demands for increased power production were met when TECO installed more engines and dynamos along with a new Babcock and Wilcox boiler providing an additional 525 h.p.  This provided the extra power needed for the street car system and electric lighting.  Plans were to later add more turbine dynamos.
At right:  1911 Burgert Bros. photo courtesy of the THCPLC

1913 Burgert Bros. photo below courtesy of the University of So. Florida digital photo collections

The photo above can be reliably dated to 1913 because the bridge seen at right was the temporary Jackson St. bridge.  It was built while the "old" (second) Lafayette St. Bridge (built in 1896) just upriver was being dismantled and replaced by the 3rd bridge at Lafayette St. which still stands today.

See more about it at TampaPix's History of the Lafayette St. Bridges.

In 1913 TECO spent $40k to add two new boilers and a steam turbine to the plant, as well as a new main switching board. 

A SECOND SMOKE STACK ADDED

In mid-May of 1914 TECO announced a plan to entirely renovate the plant by installing six more new boilers to replace the old ones, as boilers typically lasted about 9 years.  The improvements, which would cost around $200k, would include the construction of a 2nd smoke stack rising 200 feet.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE:  ELECTRIC CO. WILL BUY NEW BOILERS, May 14, 1914.

The new 2nd smoke stack was completed in early August 1914.  It was used on the two new Babcock & Wilcox boilers "of the latest type, each having 520 horse power."  The new stack was 200 ft. high and contained 200,000 radial bricks.  The whole stack weighed one million pounds and necessitated a foundation reaching 25 feet underground into solid rock, with the foundation itself weighing another million pounds.  The new stack was a little taller than the old one, so several layers of brick were to be added to make them the same height.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE:  MANY IMPROVEMENTS TO THE POWER HOUSE, Giant new smokestack has been finished, Aug. 16, 1914.

RESIDENTS COMPLAIN OF SOOT & ASH

In early May, 1916, TECO performed a ten-day secret test by burning oil in the boiler with the smoke stack nearest the river, while the other one continued burning coal.  There had been a period of complaints about the soot and ash drifting everywhere around Hyde Park and Tampa, so the experiment was run unannounced so as not to bias the evaluation.  For the whole period, no complaints were received, and General Manager J.C. Woodsome said, "Tampans are at liberty to compare the quality of the smoke coming from the two stacks."  The company had planned to convert to oil entirely on May 1, but wanted to use up all the remaining coal they had on hand.  The whole test was spurred by complaints voiced by residents around the plant when TECO asked Tampa City Council to close off two unused streets on their property so they could install oil tanks.  The nearby property owners complained that oil would cause a dense smoke and disagreeable odor, and that the noise from the oil jets in the furnaces would be heard for several blocks around.  According to Woodsome, no sound could be heard from the jets  from more than 10 feet away.

READ THE WHOLE ARTICLE:  POWER HOUSE HAS BEEN BURNING OIL TEN DAYS, May 14, 1916.

Photo above is courtesy of the Burgert Bros collection at the THCPLC where it is incorrectly dated Jan. 10, 1941.
The same photo appears in the Sunland Tribune, a Journal of the Tampa Historical Society,  Vol. 5, No. 1, Nov. 1979.
University of So. Florida Digital collections, where editor Hampton Dunn states that shortly after this photo was taken,
a third smokestack was added.  In view of the below fact that a third smoke stack was added in 1926, the 1941 date  of the above is incorrect.
 

In Feb. 1970 the  TECO P.O.K. power station was put on reserve status for emergency use.
In May 1970 the Tampa Tribune bought the site of the old power plant and demolition by wrecking ball began in Oct. the same year. 

     
As the Tribune building site was being prepared, many bricks from the old power plant were found.

The last phase of demolition began in early April 1971 on the smoke stacks with a wrecking ball taking down 30 ft. sections at a time.  By April 9th, the stacks were no more than a pile of bricks, which were hauled off in dump trucks.  They were reused to build a seawall.  The Peter O. Knight power station was TECO's only large generating station until 1948, when Hooker's Point station went in to operation. 

The Tampa Tribune buildings as seen from across the river, May 2009.

Tampa Tribune building bites the dust in March 2017 after being gobbled up and closed by the Tampa Bay Times, f.k.a. St. Pete Times.
The mayor was testing his green dye in the river in preparation for a St. Patrick's day parade.

March 9, 2017 - East meets west when a swath is cut clear through the old building.
The remaining part on the left housed the giant presses, still inside.

May 2019, what a surprise!  Condos!  Apartments!
 

And so colorful!