SH Archive Tampa Bay Hotel a.k.a. Henry B Plant Museum

[Archive]

Hello,

This is my first thread here and I wanted to make it about the most interesting building around me. The Tampa Bay Hotel, later known as Plant Hall and even later the Henry B. Plant Museum. Here's a little background narrative about the building from Wikipedia:

"The Henry B. Plant Museum is located in the south wing of Plant Hall on the University of Tampa's campus, at 401 West Kennedy Boulevard. Plant Hall was formerly known as the Tampa Bay Hotel, which was a 511-room resort hotel opened on February 5, 1891 by Henry B. Plant near the terminus of his rail line. The museum's exhibits focus on Gilded Age tourism, the elite lifestyle of the hotel's guests, and the building's use during the Spanish–American War. It was designed by architect J.A. Wood who also created the old Hillsborough County Courthouse and the Oglethorpe Hotel."

A few things I found interesting when researching the Hotel is it took them three years to complete (1888-1891), the population of Tampa during the time it was being completed was less than 5,000, there was more or less nothing in Tampa at the time except Ybor City (founded 1885-1887). The minarets are done in a Russian style onion dome type, which, most likely had antiquatech on the domes. I was able to find a picture of the hotel without the crescent moon shapes on them, instead it looks like an antenna. It's very odd to me that the first major building put into the city was a 505 room hotel. Today, the downtown is built around the hotel, like its the centerpiece of it. Finally, the hotel only stayed in business for 14 years and than it was sold to the very young city of Tampa for 125,000, after costing three million to build. Something doesn't add up here.

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Another telling thing is I couldn't find any pictures of this building being built from the ground up. As you see in the video, made by the museum, the only images of the construction we have is when its mostly complete. The video is interesting though, lots of old footage.

Timeline of the Tampa Bay Hotel
Built 1888-1891 for 3 million, Grand Opening- February 5th 1891, 4,000 guests during the 1st season, (505 rooms), 1898 Tampa Bay Hotel becomes the center of operations for the Spanish-American War, 1899 Henry B. Plant Dies, 1905-Tampa Bay Hotel sold to the city of Tampa for 125,000,
1933- University of Tampa takes it over from the city, 1933- Henry B Plant museum is established in the left wing of the hotel.

Video
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[HollyHoly]

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Username: HollyHoly
Date: 2020-01-03 22:12:19
Reaction Score: 3

so this guy builds a fantasy resort that entertains elites for a decade and then turns it into a Military Base and now it's full of soldiers and mules. The soldiers hold the citizenry up for food ?? And he goes bankrupt from the soldiers and mules rampaging the hotel and and environs and now the rich and titled don't want to hang out there any more . wow what a crazy trajectory ..no more fancy dancing Awesome post, as usual the history makes no sense as presented

 

[Archive]

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Username: Jbcool2244
Date: 2020-01-03 22:46:53
Reaction Score: 5

Another reason why such a grand hotel would be so odd for Tampa in the 1890's is the modern refrigerator and air conditioner are still a few decades away from being invented and used commercially. The feels like temperature for most of the Tampa Bay Area is going to be 105-110 from May to September and the humidity here during that time is almost unbearable. I can't imagine going around in the suits that everyone seemed to wear all the time back than.

 

[Archive]

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Username: Banta
Date: 2020-01-03 22:50:59
Reaction Score: 1

I used to live in Tampa for a period of time awhile ago... I seem to recall there being a few Russian style buildings in the area. It's amazing how blind I was, I'm sure I drove by this Museum too and never thought too much of it.

Plant seems worthy of further investigation, as because a museum in his name isn't enough apparently.

Plant City, Florida - Wikipedia

 

[KD Archive]

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Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2020-01-03 22:56:12
Reaction Score: 1

Another reason why such a grand hotel would be so odd for Tampa in the 1890's is the modern refrigerator and air conditioner are still a few decades away from being invented and used commercially.

Florida is full of stuff like this. Here is some additional stuff for your review.

• 1888 Ponce de Leon Hotel in Florida
• 19th century St. Augustine, Florida architecture

 

[HollyHoly]

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Username: HollyHoly
Date: 2020-01-03 23:04:05
Reaction Score: 6

Another reason why such a grand hotel would be so odd for Tampa in the 1890's is the modern refrigerator and air conditioner are still a few decades away from being invented and used commercially. The feels like temperature for most of the Tampa Bay Area is going to be 105-110 from May to September and the humidity here during that time is almost unbearable. I can't imagine going around in the suits that everyone seemed to wear all the time back than.

when I was watching the video they stressed the steam heating system and I thought oh really? and the clothing well British colonists in warm climates everywhere always dressed to the nines no matter what but yeah very uncomfortable unless the weather was much cooler then?? because also in the video it talks about the temperature of the climate changing and a record heatwave which was after the invasion of soldiers and mules I think..ummm

 

[Archive]

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Username: Jbcool2244
Date: 2020-01-03 23:05:13
Reaction Score: 6

I used to live in Tampa for a period of time awhile ago... I seem to recall there being a few Russian style buildings in the area. It's amazing how blind I was, I'm sure I drove by this Museum too and never thought too much of it.

Plant seems worthy of further investigation, as because a museum in his name isn't enough apparently.

Plant City, Florida - Wikipedia

Yes indeed, I attended University of Tampa my junior and senior years of college. Commuted there and had most of my classes in Plant Hall, previously known as Tampa Bay Hotel. Its amazing, my wife and I would climb up the stairs as high as we could get, trying to get close to the minarets. We never thought anything about them other than they were beautiful and a good place to be alone. In fact, at the time we just wanted to run into a ghost, and we would hang out in there late at night

Henry B. Plant is worthy of his own thread as we have a number of things named after him in Southwest Florida. He was Henry Flagler's rival and together they made Florida what it is today, supposedly. Interesting that Tampa's sister city is named St. Petersburg. Definitely a Russian dare I say Tartarian influence in the state.

when I was watching the video they stressed the steam heating system and I thought oh really? and the clothing well British colonists in warm climates everywhere always dressed to the nines no matter what but yeah very uncomfortable unless the weather was much cooler then?? because also in the video it talks about the temperature of the climate changing and a record heatwave which was after the invasion of soldiers and mules I think..ummm

Yes, I noticed that in the video to, first place that had heating for the whole hotel. I'm like ok, and we turn our heat on in Florida for like two weeks.

 

[Archive]

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Username: Banta
Date: 2020-01-03 23:09:36
Reaction Score: 1

Interesting that Tampa's sister city is named St. Petersburg.

Again, feeling like an idiot I've never made this connection before. Definitely something to all this.

 

[Wildfire2000]

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Username: WildFire2000
Date: 2020-01-04 02:58:50
Reaction Score: 1

I grew up in Plant City, it had a 'historic' area in downtown, but it was just the old brick streets and older construction. I don't recall anything special about it, but then again it was a few decades ago. Tampa itself is mostly unremarkable other than some of the weird old buildings such as Tampa University and a few of the "old Spanish garrisons" and some towers.

Now that we've been talking about things, there are lots of underground tunnels that I never knew about until mentioned here on this forum. Another thing to note, St. Pete and Pinellas county actually used to be the other half of Hillsborough county way back when, but split off in the early 1900's. So, St Pete and Tampa, while being across the Bay from each other used to be far more connected. .. not much else I have to add, unfortunately. My parents tended to avoid downtown areas of places, so I never really felt the need to go to crowded city areas.

 

[Archive]

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Username: Jbcool2244
Date: 2020-01-04 03:10:49
Reaction Score: 2

I grew up in Plant City, it had a 'historic' area in downtown, but it was just the old brick streets and older construction. I don't recall anything special about it, but then again it was a few decades ago. Tampa itself is mostly unremarkable other than some of the weird old buildings such as Tampa University and a few of the "old Spanish garrisons" and some towers.

Now that we've been talking about things, there are lots of underground tunnels that I never knew about until mentioned here on this forum. Another thing to note, St. Pete and Pinellas county actually used to be the other half of Hillsborough county way back when, but split off in the early 1900's. So, St Pete and Tampa, while being across the Bay from each other used to be far more connected. .. not much else I have to add, unfortunately. My parents tended to avoid downtown areas of places, so I never really felt the need to go to crowded city areas.

I had no idea that St. Pete used to be a part of Hillsborough county. Yay, some of the only things I know about Plant City are thats where the strawberry festival is held, and a friend of mine used to live there. I've been looking into St. Petersburg and the Snell Building and The Vinoy hotel are very impressive. The Don Cesar is breathtaking too. The Snell Building, also known as the Snell Arcade is the most impressive building there though. Check out this photo of it from what looks like the 1930's.

Ok, so there's tunnels underground the Snell Arcade, where, its alleged that Al Capone used to smuggle goods and people through.
Did Al Capone use a secret tunnel under downtown St. Petersburg for smuggling?
I had no idea that there were tunnels underground in Florida at all. We're always told if you dig more than a few feet you hit water.

 

[Wildfire2000]

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Username: WildFire2000
Date: 2020-01-04 03:55:27
Reaction Score: 2

Yeah, there was an article linked here on this forum somewhere about them finding tunnels in Ybor. I commented pretty much the same thing you did about digging in the Tampa Bay area, because .. ya know, basements. "No, water table is too high, also, too much sand." Yeah, that's BS. I'm in Georgia now and basements are rare, but all houses are built with crawlspaces here, because of some state ordinance passed around the 1950's or so. I find it weird since in Florida all houses are built on solid slab foundations. They're required by state law to dig down and secure the buildings to the ground, even in areas like Dade County, Miami and all that. Go look up pictures from when Hurricane Andrew blew through and wiped out that area. There are places where entire subdivisions were blown away and ripped from their foundations, and you can see 100's of concrete slab housing footprints. Georgia? Nope, all the housing is built 2-3 feet above the ground. Just something weird I've noticed.

My Uncle used to do drilling for a company based in the bay area. He actually put in footers and things for one of the interstates in there, as well as other places all across the state. He has an NDA about how there's a section of one of those that after digging ~70+ft through the rock they hit an open hole of some kind. They tried to place some foundational footers around there and kept going deeper and deeper and after over 300ft they never hit bottom. So, there's some massive underground cavern of some sort along the main interstate outside the Tampa Bay area that could potentially collapse due to traffic. Cool huh?

The Strawberry Festival is held every year in either February or March for a week or so, because winter time is when strawberries are in season in Florida. That's about all that happens there really, that I know of. There's a small airport for minor traffic and whatnot, but, uh... yeah. Parksdale farms...

 

[Archive]

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Username: Banta
Date: 2020-06-01 06:47:00
Reaction Score: 0

Yeah, there was an article linked here on this forum somewhere about them finding tunnels in Ybor. I commented pretty much the same thing you did about digging in the Tampa Bay area, because .. ya know, basements.

FBI investigation: secret underground tunnel discovered in Florida

 

[Silencedogood]

Wonderful post. This is a prime example of, "we wouldn't have built it if we could've, and couldn't have built it if we would've" if that makes sense. Truly many older universities are remnants of the old world. A hotel really? People don't travel places for a hotel but these old hotels are more grand than the reasons we often do travel today!