Tampa Bay History

The time was one where masters and slaves existed, and that’s what William Ashley and Nancy were to one another. But the words on their headstone at Tampa's Oaklawn Cemetery explain a bond much deeper. 

The names of 23 who died aboard the Blackthorn rang out at a solemn ceremony near the Sunshine Skyway Bridge Tuesday.

The Gasparilla Children's Parade will fill Bayshore Boulevard Saturday. The parade has grown into a major event, but its origins are humble.

With every sift of dirt, new clues appear, dating back to the 1700s. 

Legend speaks of St. Nicholas tossing a ball of gold into a girl’s stocking to spare her from suffering, but those balls of gold were likened by Europeans to a rare and exotic fruit we call oranges.

As Tampa City Council received an update Thursday on the search for unmarked graves that were once part of Zion Cemetery, the future of Robles Park Village, which sits on top of the forgotten African American burial ground, also became clearer.

Billionaires Jeff and Penny Vinik announced a $1 million donation to save Tampa’s iconic Jackson House. 

The last working cigar factory in Ybor City is undergoing renovations before they celebrate their 125th anniversary in 2020. The purpose is to make the cigar factory a tourist destination and to remind everyone that Tampa is the “Cigar City.”

Little by little, the city of Tampa is unearthing its history that was buried, in some cases, for more than a century.

On the very day Florida's Interstate 4 opened in 1963, a shrimp truck jackknifed, killing the driver.  And that was just the beginning.

It was on May 9, 1980 when the unthinkable happened: The freighter M/V Summit Venture collided with a support column during a blinding thunderstorm, knocking a 1,200-foot section of the roadway into the water below.

A new documentary about the 1980 Sunshine Skyway Bridge disaster takes a fresh look at a dark day when 35 people were killed after a ship struck the bridge during a bad storm. 

Longstanding plans to convert a historic West Tampa cigar factory into a boutique hotel appear to be moving forward.

A Tampa historian hopes to memorialize dozens of unnamed slaves buried in Oaklawn Cemetery, the final resting place for many of the city's founders.

Fifty years ago, the first of 12 astronauts walked on the moon. Florida launched all of them, and they in turn helped launch what we currently know as Florida. 

In 1901, when the Anderson-Frank home was completed just off Bayshore Boulevard, it was one of the first homes built in the neighborhood.

Music brought Cesar and Adela Gonzmart together. At 21, he was a violin soloist with the Havana Symphony; she was a Julliard graduate and concert pianist.

Before the food hall known as Armature Works along the Riverwalk opened, there was a company that originated with the same name, and it has been around for nearly a century.