This region of Pinellas was first settled in the 1830s and 1840s by Odet Phillippe, a French Huguenot from Charleston, SC, along with the McMullen Family from Quitman, Georgia and the British Richard Booth family who planted citrus groves and raised cattle. Following the Civil War, during the Reconstruction era, the city was founded by John C. Williams, formerly of

Detroit Detroit ( , ) is the List of municipalities in Michigan, most populous city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated on the bank of the Detroit River across from Windsor, Ontario. It had a population of 639,111 at the 2020 United State ...

, who purchased the land in 1876, and by Peter Demens, who was instrumental in bringing the terminus of the

Orange Belt Railway The Orange Belt Railway (later known as the Sanford & St. Petersburg Railroad) was a narrow gauge railroad established in 1885 by Russian exile Peter Demens in Florida. It was one of the longest narrow gauge railroads in the United States at t ...

there in 1888. St. Petersburg was incorporated on February 29, 1892, when it had a population of only some 300 people. It was named after

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, Russia, where Peter Demens had spent half of his youth. A local legend says that John C. Williams and Peter Demens flipped a coin to see who would have the honor of naming the city. Peter Demens won and named the city after his home, while John C. Williams named the first hotel after his birthplace, Detroit (a hotel built by Demens). The Detroit Hotel still exists downtown, but has been turned into a

condominium A condominium (or condo for short) is an ownership regime in which a building (or group of buildings) is divided into multiple units that are either each separately owned, or owned in common with exclusive rights of occupation by individual own ...

. The oldest running hotels are the historic Cordova Inn, built in 1921, formally Hotel Cordova and The Heritage Hotel, built in 1926.

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

publisher F. A. Davis turned on St. Petersburg's first electrical service in 1897 and its first trolley service in 1904. The city's first major industry was born in 1899 when Henry W. Hibbs (1862–1942), a native of

Newport, North Carolina Newport is a town in Carteret County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 4,510 at the 2010 census. History Newport was officially chartered in 1866. Although the crossroads community on the Newport River was known by that name ...

, established his wholesale fish business at the end of the railroad pier, which extended out to the shipping channel. Within a year, Hibbs Fish Company was shipping more than of fish each day. Dredging of a deeper shipping channel from 1906 to 1908 opened St. Petersburg to larger shipping. Further dredging improved the port facilities through the 1910s. By then the city's population had quadrupled to 4,127. In 1914,

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

service across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Tampa and back was initiated, generally considered the first scheduled commercial airline flight. The company name was the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, and the pilot was

Tony Jannus Antony Habersack Jannus, more familiarly known as Tony Jannus (July 22, 1889 – October 12, 1916), was an early American pilot whose aerial exploits were widely publicized in aviation's pre-World War I period. He flew the first airplane from ...

, flying a

Benoist XIV __NOTOC__ The Benoist XIV, also called ''The Lark of Duluth'', was a small biplane flying boat built in the United States in 1913 in the hope of using it to carry paying passengers. The two examples built were used to provide the first heavier-th ...

flying boat A flying boat is a type of seaplane with a hull, allowing it to land on water. It differs from a floatplane in having a fuselage that is purpose-designed for flotation, while floatplanes rely on fuselage-mounted floats for buoyancy. Though ...

. The Tony Jannus Award is presented annually for outstanding achievement in the airline industry. Jannus Live, a local music/entertainment venue on Central Avenue in downtown, is also named after him. The city population continued to multiply during the 20th century, booming in the 1940s and 1950s and through the 1970s as the town became a popular retirement destination for Americans from

midwestern The Midwestern United States (also referred to as the Midwest, the Heartland or the American Midwest) is one of the four census regions defined by the United States Census Bureau. It occupies the northern central part of the United States. It ...

cities, reaching 238,647 in the 1980 census. By that time, however, the population had leveled off, and has grown by only 10,000 since then. In the decade from 2000 to 2010, the population of the city dropped by approximately 4000 residents, while in the same period the population of Florida increased by over two and a half million residents.

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