Our inventory of grape leaves was low, photo shoots in interesting local areas did not happen for months, so it was off to Tarpon Springs. Very interesting stop in downtown Tarpon (not the sponge docks) was a visit to the Historic Train Depot Museum. We met Tom, the 'curator' who brought to light so !!! many interesting facts about Tarpon Springs history we could never imagine.
Did you know Tarpon Springs was the first 'hub' of development a future Pinellas County, it is part of the largest land purchase (4 million areas for $1.0 million) just behind the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska (wow!). The year ... somewhere around 1880 when Florida was in financial trouble and the investors said "hey, open land, sand, a good place for real estate development". It wasn't until 1920 when a Greek entrepreneur found this to be a great place for the sponge industry and called home (Greece) and enticed 25 families to come to America.
We walked the sponge docks (nothing really changed, just low end (cheap) novelty stores, but before the photo walk we found an out of the way Greek diner - next to an auto repair shop. Two Gyros for $8.99!
Did you know Tarpon Springs was the first 'hub' of development a future Pinellas County, it is part of the largest land purchase (4 million areas for $1.0 million) just behind the Louisiana Purchase and Alaska (wow!). The year ... somewhere around 1880 when Florida was in financial trouble and the investors said "hey, open land, sand, a good place for real estate development". It wasn't until 1920 when a Greek entrepreneur found this to be a great place for the sponge industry and called home (Greece) and enticed 25 families to come to America.
We walked the sponge docks (nothing really changed, just low end (cheap) novelty stores, but before the photo walk we found an out of the way Greek diner - next to an auto repair shop. Two Gyros for $8.99!
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