HISTORY OF PASCO COUNTY

Various Articles

Pioneers Sowed County’s Growth

This article appeared in the St. Petersburg Times on June 24, 1987.

By BOB JENSEN and FRANCES LEE GARRISON

For most of Pasco’s 19th-century pioneers, the trip to their new home was hardly first class.

They came on horses and in ox carts from their homes in Georgia and Alabama, Missouri and the Carolinas, these rural people who would become known as Crackers.

In these days before the Florida land boom, they weren't looking for instant riches, just a new place to build and plant and harvest.

What they found was a land of lush green vegetation and vast pine forests. Scattered inland to the east were palmetto palms, cypress and oak trees. Swampy marshes laced with mangroves stretched from the Gulf of Mexico west to what is now U.S. 19.

Today, U.S. 19 is Pasco’s main street, crowded with people in air-conditioned cars on their way to the subdivisions, shopping centers and fast-food restaurants that have sprung up near the highway.

The landscape is not all that has changed. Although many of the people on the road are recent arrivals, their motive is different. They do not come to Pasco to strike out anew; they come to enjoy retirement after their working years are over.

In the 100 years since Pasco was carved out of Hernando as a separate county, residents have lived and worked through booms and busts, fair weather and freezes, as the county has developed from an out-of-the-way agricultural land.

The centennial story includes:

The pioneers who settled the land that became Pasco County in 1887 were met by hardship.

But they also found a virtually untouched land where fish and game were for the taking, building materials were at hand and crops could be grown year-round.

In 1887 there were about 5,000 of them, scattered among small communities throughout the county. Many of the towns had just three or four families in them, and now no longer exist.

The fertile land sold for between $25 and $50 an acre, and produced tobacco, rice, sugar cane, cotton, potatoes, tomatoes and oranges.

One of the pioneers was James Washington Clark, who came to what is now Port Richey in 1872 because of his cows.

Livestock roamed unfenced in those days, and the Clark cattle developed a penchant for travel, said Frances Clark Mallett, a local historian and Clark’s granddaughter.

They repeatedly sauntered down Old Salt Road to the coastal area where Port Richey is now, "and Grandpa Clark would go and bring them back."

Finally he decided he liked the coastal area and moved there, marrying Frances Louise Hope of Brooksville the same year. They had five children.

Typical of many of the settlers, Clark had a deep sense of community responsibility. There were only three families living in the area at first. They were Clark, Aaron McLaughlin Richey - who was called "captain" because he had a schooner - and the Malcolm Hill family. When a school was needed, Clark built one on his land and served as a trustee with Richey and Hill.

Carving out a new county

The area that was to become Pasco County was originally a part of Hernando County, with the county seat in Brooksville. People in the southern part of the county disliked having to travel such a long distance for court and other legal business. It was a long, tiresome journey by horseback or ox cart.

Those complaints sparked a drive to divide Hernando. Two Pasco leaders, Dr. Richard Bankston and Judge J.A. Handley, led the way.

The name "Banner County" was proposed for the southerly section. Although the legislators favored the division, they didn't like the name because each one thought his county was a "banner" county.

As a compromise, the name Pasco was chosen in honor of the newly elected and popular U.S. Sen. Samuel Pasco of Monticello.

The bill, which also carved out Citrus County from northern Hernando, passed both houses unanimously.

On June 2, 1887, Pasco’s 738 square miles officially became a separate county.

Dade City was selected as the county seat. The new board of commissioners for Pasco County held its first meeting in Dade City on July 18, 1887. The chairman was E.G. Liles.

The first census of Pasco County, according to a history compiled by the West Pasco Historical Society Inc., was taken in 1890 by the U.S. Department of Commerce. The population count was 3,249. In the 1960 U.S. Census, 36,785 people were counted. By 1970 the census was 75,955. Today, county planners estimate the population at 253,500, and Pasco is one of the fastest growing counties in the state.

In the same year the Pasco became a county, the railroad came to Pasco.

The first train of the South Florida Railway owned by the Henry B. Plant system steamed into the new depot on Dade City’s Main Street near the Dade City Cemetery.

Construction of the railway actually began in 1885. But for about a year, said William Dayton, a Dade City lawyer and local historian, the railroad kept one elderly man working a few hours a day on the railroad bed so the company could say the rail line was under construction. This gave Plant time to interest investors, and by 1887 the run from Wildwood to Dade City was established, Dayton said.

About 1885, it was rumored a second railway line was coming into Dade City. Due to some quiet lobbying by Coleman & Ferguson General Store owners, the railway station was built on Meridian Avenue, conveniently close to their store, Dayton said.

This railroad was the forerunner of Seaboard Coast Line Railroad Co., which still operates in Dade City and Land O’ Lakes. Service to Elfers and Tarpon Springs was discontinued Dec. 30, 1986.

Trilby, north of Dade City, was expected in those early days to grow into a big railroad center. But it never happened; Trilby remains a small town.

The arrival of the railroad meant that orange growers and farmers could get their produce to markets with more speed and far less risk of spoilage than ox carts offered.

According to Dayton, oranges were a good money crop. He said a grower with a 100-acre grove could "retire on one crop." A five-acre grove could support a family, he said.

The big freeze of 1894-95 spelled disaster for some growers, but others made a comeback.

The railroad also opened the door for the timber boom.

The lumber community of 5-A, near Hudson, laid its own spur lines into the pine woods to make it easier to tap the growth of virgin timber and later ship it north.

Peter A. Demens, who came from Russia and became a naturalized American citizen, was instrumental in financing the Orange Belt Railway, which ran from Sanford to Trilby to St. Petersburg. The narrow gauge railroad was another branch of the Atlantic Coast Line, part of the Plant railway system, and was acquired by Demens in payment for a debt.

The Orange Belt line cut across the county from the east diagonally to the southwest, proceeding to Tarpon Springs and St. Petersburg. The Orange Belt provided access to the timber in the county’s forests.

5-A, named after five men who owned the huge sawmill and had last names beginning with the same letter, had a booming operation from the turn of the century until the 1920s, said Dayton.

Possibly thousands of folks ventured into the area, counting on the wealth of West Pasco’s pine trees.

"You could travel for days and see nothing but pine. The lumbermen couldn't conceive of it ever running out," Dayton said.

So confident were these pioneers that they sold only the best pine, destroying the lesser-grade knotty pine and sending the clean heartwood all over the country instead, Dayton said.

The boom ended when the lumbermen had depleted the virgin timber supply and found themselves out of work. After ravaging the forests, they moved on, leaving mainly a ghost town and sawdust-spewing fires that burned for years afterward.

The big pines also produced turpentine, and small "turpentine towns" appeared near the railroad routes but not close to other towns. The communities of Loyce and Sagano northeast of Hudson grew up around the production of turpentine.

Harvesting turpentine was a rough business that operated with what was virtually slave labor, Dayton said. Violence was a fact of life in the labor camps run by white men who brought in former slaves to do the work.

The turpentine industry also helped wipe out many of the pine trees in West Pasco. The crude methods of extracting the pine gum that later was distilled into turpentine would kill the trees after three or four years. The towns would then fold.

Though the lumber and turpentine camps shared the common bond of pine trees, they had nothing in common otherwise, Dayton said. In fact, the lumber crews looked down on turpentine types, as did the general population.

"'Those godless folks without souls' is a phrase I've often heard was spoken about members the turpentine community," Dayton said.

The 1900s brought Florida’s boom, built on land speculation. Pasco had its share, too. According to Ralph Bellwood, author of Tales of West Pasco, a frame house close to the railroad station in New Port Richey sold three times, first for $3,500 and the third time for $6,500.

The railroad, the advent of the automobile, electricity and the telephone all played a part in expanding tourism.

Hotels opened, such as New Port Richey’s Hacienda Hotel. Two of its investors were film stars Thomas Meighan, who had built a large home in New Port Richey, and Gloria Swanson. Comedian Ed Wynn was master of ceremonies on opening night. [Information in this paragraph may be incorrect — jm]

According to West Pasco’s Heritage, a history compiled by the West Pasco Historical Society Inc., lots were sold to Meighan, Wynn, Swanson, composer Irving Berlin and professional golfer Gene Sarazen.

Meighan built a large, formal estate home overlooking the Pithlachascotee River at what now is Meighan Court off S Boulevard. Most of the estate has been subdivided into housing, but servants' quarters and the quarters of Meighan’s chauffeurs still stand.

The Meighan Theatre, now the Richey Suncoast Theatre, a hearty structure built in 1926.

Meighan met up with land developer George Sims and launched an ambitious plan to make New Port Richey the moving picture capital of the South.

Although George McGuire, the historian for the Richey Suncoast Theatre, says Meighan and his Hollywood buddies chipped in to build the 500-seat theatre that opened July 1, 1926, other historians say a corporation called the Richey Amusement Co. started the theatre.

The first silent movie shown, entitled The New Klondike, was about the Florida land boom years. Starring in the movie was "naturally, Thomas Meighan," McGuire said.

A golf course was built at Jasmine Point. Champion golfer Gene Sarazen became the golf pro. According to West Pasco’s Heritage, Sarazen influenced many wealthy and prominent people to come to the area. He built a Spanish-style two-story home in Jasmine Point across from the Meighan estate. Sarazen now lives on Marco Island, near Naples.

Pasco attracted other celebrities in the early 1900s as well. In Aripeka there is a little time-weathered wooden cabin where a large board sign in the yard proclaims that in 1919 Babe Ruth fished here and that Jack Dempsey trained here in 1921. They also played poker together, according to the sign.

According to Lizzie Bell Jackson, former postmistress who has lived in Aripeka since 1911, the real Babe Ruth cabin was originally near the Os-O-Waw Hotel, which burned in 1960.

That little cabin is now on the Robbins property across from the parsonage of the Aripeka Baptist Church. Mrs. Jackson confirms that Babe Ruth came to Aripeka for fishing and stayed in that cabin.

Ed Haley, promoter and builder of Clearwater’s Fort Harrison Hotel, bought 6,000 acres at Moon Lake east of Port Richey and transformed it into a palatial playground for the rich and famous. According to Bellwood, 400 meals a day were served in its dining halls. Five-thousand acres were enclosed for a hunting preserve stocked with game, and there were 15 miles of bridle paths. It is said that Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr. and many political business leaders were entertained there.

Transportation was further advanced with the construction of U.S. 19 parallel to the Gulf coastline. The state Department of Transportation headquarters in Bartow has records only back to 1927, according to spokeswoman Kathy Palmer. She said that at that time U.S. 19 was a state highway and was paved.

The gas shortage during World War II caused a decline in the Moon Lake Dude Ranch and Gardens, as it was called, and in 1962 the property was divided into homesites.

The big change in Pasco came after World War II, when retirees began to come from colder lands to the north.

"Quality of life" - translated as affordable housing and warm weather - changed the face of Pasco.

The "$5,990" helped spur the post-war Pasco boom. That was the typical cost of Pasco’s standard two-bedroom house, a price that made Florida retirement affordable.

Northern tourists who were enamored of the state after vacationing on the more pricey beaches to the south found themselves wondering how they could afford to make their home in the Florida sun.

As they drove back north on what was then a lonely two-lane highway called U.S. 19, the "$5,990" signs jumped out.

"People saw the signs, and they stopped in and bought homes like they were buying a loaf of bread," Pasco Property Appraiser Ted Williams said in a 1982 interview.

Although Pasco can't brag about the most scenic beaches in Florida, the magnetism of the coast also played a part in the growth on the west side.

"I don't know why exactly, but people seem to be interested in living near the water, even if they don't own a boat and don't fish," Williams said.

Post-war development was concentrated mainly on the west side, where property owners also were more willing than their East Pasco counterparts to sell to developers because the land was not as productive for either citrus or cattle.

Building on that land was especially attractive because of the freedom with which developers could subdivide and build; it was not until the mid-1970s that Pasco passed comprehensive zoning laws. In the years before that, developers built with pretty much a free hand.

In the 1960s, retirees flocked to West Pasco to snatch up the bargain homes in subdivisions such as Colonial Hills, Orangewood Village, Tahitian Gardens and Holiday Lake Estates. Pasco’s population more than doubled, and the median age in the county leaped from 38.5 to 53.4.

An example of how an area changed can be seen in Elfers, an unincorporated hamlet nestled just south of New Port Richey along State Road 595, once was home to just citrus groves and cattle.

Sans Souci, a 250-acre grove owned by the Knight family and situated 1/4 mile south of what is now the intersection of County Roads 54 and 595, continued to flourish until "the '62 freeze that knocked everybody back," Joe Knight Jr. said.

The Knights replanted and were back in full production by the late 1960s, but "subdivisions began to encroach, and about all we could do was sell" Sans Souci, Knight said.

Today, Elfers is home to more than 12,000 people and many subdivisions and small businesses.

The development trends were clear by the 1970 census, which showed that for the first time more people lived in the west than the east. That tilted the balance of power from county seat Dade City to the new residents clustered around the increasingly congested U.S. 19.

In 1950, 81 percent of Pasco’s population lived on the east side. By 1980, only 21 percent lived there, and 70 percent of Pasco residents were living in a 3-mile swath along U.S. 19.

The economic activity in the county today can is reflected in Pasco’s largest employers, a list dominated by service businesses.

Number one is the Pasco County schools, with 3,500 workers. Next are Lykes Pasco Packing Co., the Dade City juice processor, and the Pasco County government with 1,400 employees each.

Rounding out the top 11 are three hospitals, Saddlebrook resort, Publix grocery, Oakley Brothers Inc., Saint Leo College and the Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative.

The influx of the elderly has shaped Pasco’s economy.

"It is important to recognize the economic role of retirees as a domestic industry, and not just a component of the population," says a growth management study commissioned by county officials last year.

Instead of the normal process of people following economic activity, in Pasco the people - retirees - moved here first, creating the jobs that have expanded the economy and attracted more young people.

As the study put it: "Growth itself has been the growth industry of Pasco County."

Pasco County Census Figures

1890 4249
1895 4607
1900 6054
1905 6100
1910 7502
1915 9634
1920 8802
1925 11,599
1960 36,785
1970 75,955
1980 193,643
1990 281,131
2000 344,765

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