History of the City of St. Pete, Florida

The history of St. Pete, Florida began with the establishment of a settlement in 1876.  Co-founders John C. Williams and Peter Demens were instrumental in dedicating the land that would become the city and in bringing the terminus of a railroad there in 1888. St. Pete, or St. Petersburg, was  officially incorporated on February 29, 1892, with a population of 300 people.  St. Pete was named after Saint Petersburg, Russia, where Demens spent half of his youth.

The next few decades brought modernization for St. Pete.  Philadelphia publisher F. A. Davis turned on St. Petersburg's first electrical service in 1897 and its first trolley began service in 1904.  Industry came to St. Pete in 1899 when a North Carolinian established a wholesale fish business at the end of the railroad pier, which extended out to the shipping channel.  Soon, it became necessary to provide access to St. Pete for larger shipping, and dredging of a deeper shipping channel took place from 1906 to 1908.   Further dredging improved the port facilities through the early 1900s, and by then the city’s population had quadrupled to 4,127.  In 1914, the first commercial airline service in the U.S. was initiated with a route across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Tampa and back.

St. Pete’s population continued to multiply during the 20th century.  The 1940s and 50s were a population explosion, especially the advent of air-conditioning in homes.  Through the 1970s, St. Pete became a popular retirement destination for Americans from the cooler cities in the Midwest, and the population reached 238,647 in the 1980 census.