Peru, Florida was a town in

Hillsborough County, Florida Hillsborough County is located in the west central portion of the U.S. state of Florida. In the 2020 census, the population was 1,459,762, making it the fourth-most populous county in Florida and the most populous county outside the Miami metrop ...

, that was later absorbed into Riverview. It was initially settled in 1843 on the South bank of the

Alafia River The Alafia River is long, with a watershed of in Hillsborough County, Florida, United States, flowing into Tampa Bay. The watershed contains ten named lakes and ponds, and 29 named rivers, streams and canals. During the rainy season, excess w ...

at what is now US Highway 301 by Benjamin Moody and others who came to claim land under the "Armed Occupation Act of Florida" which was passed in 1842 and granted 160 acres of land to any head of family or any single man who would bear arms and live on the land in a house for five years. The name was pronounced "Pe-Roo", as ''Peru'' was a native name meaning "straight part of the river". The town existed for almost 100 years before being absorbed into Riverview in the 1940s. Prior to the occupation by white settlers, the area was inhabited by a

Timucuan The Timucua were a Native American people who lived in Northeast and North Central Florida and southeast Georgia. They were the largest indigenous group in that area and consisted of about 35 chiefdoms, many leading thousands of people. The var ...

group known as the

Mocoso Mocoso (or Mocoço) was the name of a 16th-century chiefdom located on the east side of Tampa Bay, Florida near the mouth of the Alafia River, of its chief town and of its chief. Mocoso was also the name of a 17th-century village in the province o ...

. In the 1800s, the Peruvian Mining Company mined phosphate in the area. A post office was established in 1879, closing in 1900 with the mail being routed through the Riverview post office. In 1900, Hillsborough County contracted Virginia Bridge and Iron of Roanoke, Virginia to build a bridge between Peru and Riverview at a cost of $7,864.00, replacing the ferry. The bridge was constructed with the ironwork of the Lafayette Street bridge in Tampa.

References

{{coord, 27, 52, 00, N, 82, 19, 25, W, type:city_region:US-FL_source:GNIS-enwiki, display=title 1879 establishments in Florida Populated places established in 1879 Former populated places in Hillsborough County, Florida Former towns Towns in Florida