Links to the Outside World During the 1920s, the Pinellas peninsula took steps to establish and solidify links to the outside world. In St. Petersburg, George S. “Dads” Gandy built the Gandy Bridge between that city and Tampa, shortening the St. Petersburg-to-Tampa trip from 43 miles to 19 miles. At its opening in 1924 amid much fanfare and instant fame as the longest automobile toll bridge in the world, Gandy gave perhaps the shortest grand-opening speech in history: “The bridge is built.”
During this same period, Captain Ben T. Davis built a 9.5-mile causeway from Clearwater to Tampa. At the time, it was the nation’s longest causeway built over water.
The various transportation links to other communities in Pinellas overcame the troublesome isolation of the peninsula that had plagued Clearwater in earlier decades. By 1926, the isolation was largely vanquished and the entrances to the city were opened wider than ever to new residents who came to build a great city.
With the rest of the nation teetering on the edge of the Great Depression, Clearwater enjoyed a major boom, a boom which some say helped see Clearwater through the Depression when it finally did arrive here. Part Six: Boom Days!
Recommended Reading: Clearwater: a Pictorial History, by Michael L. Sanders; Yesterday’s Clearwater, by Hampton Dunn; a History of Pinellas County, By W.L. Straub; and Clearwater: a Sparkling City, by Roy Cadwell.
We are working on the next editions of the series to bring it up to the present. If your life, or your family’s or your neighbor’s is an interesting chapter in Clearwater history, please write to Freedom Magazine c/o Church of Scientology, 503 Cleveland Street 33755, or call (727) 467-6860 or e-mail coscw@scientology.org.
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