Tampa Florida History & Facts

Tampa is a city on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The city's borders include the north shore of Tampa Bay and the east shore of Old Tampa Bay. Tampa is the largest city in the Tampa Bay area and the seat of Hillsborough County. With a population of 384,959 according to the 2020 census, Tampa is the third-most populated city in Florida after Jacksonville and Miami and is the 52nd most populated city in the United States.

Tampa functioned as a military center during the 19th century with the establishment of Fort Brooke. The cigar industry was also brought to the city by Vincente Martinez Ybor, after whom Ybor City is named. Tampa was formally reincorporated as a city in 1887, following the Civil War. Today, Tampa's economy is driven by tourism, health care, finance, insurance, technology, construction, and the maritime industry. The bay's port is the largest in the state, responsible for over $15 billion in economic impact.

The city is part of the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area which is a four-county area composed of roughly 3.1 million residents, making it the second-largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state and the fourth largest in the Southeastern United States, behind Washington D.C., Miami, and Atlanta. The Greater Tampa Bay area has over 4 million residents and generally includes the Tampa and Sarasota metro areas. As of 2018, Tampa's annual growth rate is 1.63%.

When the pioneer community living near the US Army outpost of Fort Brooke was incorporated in 1849, it was called "Tampa Town" and the name was shortened to simply "Tampa" in 1855. The earliest instance of the name "Tampa", in the form "Tanpa", appears in the memoirs of Hernando de Escalante Fontaneda, who spent 17 years as a captive of the Calusa and traveled through much of peninsular Florida. He described Tanpa as an important Calusa town to the north of the Calusa domain, possibly under another chief. Archaeologist Jerald Milanich places the town of Tanpa at the mouth of Charlotte Harbor. The entrances to Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor are obscured by barrier islands, and their locations, and the names applied to them, were a source of confusion to explorers, surveyors and map-makers from the 16th century though the 18th century. Bahía Tampa and Bahía de Espíritu Santo were each used, at one time or another, for the modern Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor. Tampa Bay was labeled Bahía de Espíritu Santo (Bay of the Holy Spirit) in the earliest Spanish maps of Florida, but became known as B. Tampa (Bahía Tampa or Tampa Bay) as early as 1576. "B. Tampa", corresponding to Tampa Bay, appeared for the first time on a printed map in Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas's Description del Destricto del Audiencia de la Espanola, from his book Descripcion de las Indias Ocidentales, printed in Madrid in 1601.

A British map of 1705 also shows B. Tampa, with "Carlos Bay" for Charlotte Harbor to the south, while a 1748 British map had "B. del Spirito Santo" for Tampa Bay and, again, "Carlos Bay" to the south. A Spanish map of 1757 renamed Tampa Bay as "San Fernando". As late as 1774, Bernard Romans called Tampa Bay "Bay of Espiritu Santo", with "Tampa Bay" restricted to the Northwest arm (what is now Old Tampa Bay) and the northeast arm named "Hillsborough Bay". The name may have come from the Calusa language or possibly, the Timucua language. Some scholars have compared "Tampa" to "itimpi", which means "close to or nearby" in the Creek language, but its meaning is not known.

The shores of Tampa Bay have been inhabited for thousands of years. A variant of the Weeden Island culture developed in the area by about 2000 years ago, with archeological evidence suggesting that these residents relied on the sea for most of their resources, as a vast majority of inhabited sites have been found on or near the shoreline and there is little evidence of farming. At the time of European contact in the early 16th century, several chiefdoms of the Safety Harbor culture dominated the area.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 175.3 sq mi (453.9 km2), including 113.4 sq mi (293.7 km2) of land and 61.8 sq mi (160.1 km2) (35.3%) of water. The highest point in the city is only 48 ft (15 m) above sea level. Tampa is bordered by two bodies of water, Old Tampa Bay and Hillsborough Bay, which flow together to form Tampa Bay, which in turn flows into the Gulf of Mexico. The Hillsborough River flows into Hillsborough Bay, passing directly in front of Downtown Tampa and supplying Tampa's main source of fresh water. The Palm River is a smaller river flowing from just east of the city into McKay Bay, which is a smaller inlet, sited at the northeast end of Hillsborough Bay. Tampa's geography is marked by the Interbay Peninsula which divides Hillsborough Bay (the eastern) from Old Tampa Bay (the western).

Famous Peoples From Tampa Florida

Brittany Anne Snow

(born March 9, 1986) is an American actress. She rose to prominence after appearing in the CBS soap opera Guiding Light (1998–2001), for which she won a Young Artist Award for Best Young Actress and was nominated for two other Young Artist Awards and a Soap Opera Digest Award. She then starred in the NBC drama series American Dreams (2002–2005), for which she was nominated for a Young Artist Award and three Teen Choice Awards.

Snow has appeared in various films, including The Pacifier (2005), John Tucker Must Die (2006), Hairspray (2007), Prom Night (2008), Would You Rather (2012), the Pitch Perfect film series (2012–2017), Bushwick (2017), Hangman (2017), Someone Great (2019), and X (2022). She also appeared in the NBC legal comedy-drama series Harry's Law (2011) and in the Fox drama series Almost Family (2019–2020).

Snow is the co-founder of the Love Is Louder movement, a project by the not-for-profit Jed Foundation, dedicated to stop bullying in schools. Snow also started a mental health letter writing initiative in 2020 called "September Letters".

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