Before St. Petersburg was the Sunshine City, some early promoters tested a less beachy moniker: The City of Mounds. It might be surprising to learn that the area was dotted with Native American mounds of all sizes and shapes, most notably a complex of a least a dozen mounds close to the Tampa Bay shoreline around the vicinity of Booker Creek, Bayboro Harbor, and Mound Park Hospital, better known today as Bayfront Health St. Petersburg.
Baywood Park site of a former shell moundAccording to Robert J. Austin in an article published by the Florida Anthropological Society, the Shell Mound at Mound Park Hospital – estimated to be about 20-25-feet tall with a diameter of 90-feet – was one of the most photographed mounds in Florida and a prominent tourist attraction for the growing City of St.… Read More