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Tampa- A Look Back in Time

© Vickie Ferguson

Tampa, also referred to as Tampa Bay, has been my hometown for over thirty-five years. While I wasn't born here (I'm a Virginian) my family moved here when I was very young.

Moving to Tampa in the early 50's was like moving to a very large undeveloped and wide-opened area. There were lots of long highways and dirt roads with acres and acres of land on either side with nothing growing on them except Palmetto plants.

To take a short drive out of the city limits, you'd be immediately surrounded by rows of orange groves. I remember as a little girl driving to these groves with my dad and picking oranges right off the trees!

One highway in particular comes to mind when I think back to those days. It's called the Courtney Campbell Causeway located very close to Tampa International Airport and named after Ben T. Campbell. It was then and still is one of the connections from Tampa to Clearwater. It's just a long highway with Tampa Bay on one side and the Gulf of Mexico on the other. Nice drive except during hurricanes!

Anyway, back then there were only souvenir shops scattered along the causeway with every kind of shell available, a couple of restaurants with the absolute best shrimp that was fresh caught daily and served boiled with butter on the side. Along the causeway itself were a scattering of picnic tables and a couple of places to put in your boat. Other than that, not much except for lots of pines trees and oleander bushes. The "beach" was just a little section with really white sand and a refreshment stand but boy-o-boy; it was the busiest hangout in town.

Today the causeway is still a major connector to Clearwater but the scenery is much different! From one end to the nearly the other, the highway is lined with restaurants (both sides) and hotels. The beach is still alive and well and the oleander bushes are still blooming (fyi, they're poisonous) but there's a lot more traffic these days!

Another favorite area of mine back then was downtown Tampa. At that time, it was mostly retail stores. It was an experience to go shopping at these stores. People had an "uptown, get dressed in your best" attitude about it. One of the stores, Maas Brothers, had gloved elevator operators to take you to your floor. I spent many hours in this store (my mom retired from Maas). It was a special time, not anything like today.

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