The boom was over in 1927. The Depression was two years away. But before that, Clearwater and other Pinellas cities had a heap of growing and living to do.

Commenting on the difference between the boom years and the Great Depression years, pioneer Floridian and longtime Pinellas County resident Jay Starkey wrote: “I remember the national crash (or whatever one wants to call it) of the year 1929. ... If you were not grown and living in South Florida during the mid-20s and the depression of the early 30s... you will not believe there could be such contrast in style of living.”

From Starkey’s description of the mid-1920s boom, it is easy to understand why he says that anyone who did not experience the transition to the 1930s would be unlikely to believe his account of the way it was.

The Oldsmar Band with Harry E. Prettyman as leader drums up boomtime business (in 1925) for Oldsmar, Florida, "the Suburb of two cities - Tampa and St. Petersburg."

He writes in his book Things I Remember—1899-1979: “When you tell someone today that a man could subdivide a 40-acre tract into 160 to 200 lots, most anywhere between Clearwater and St. Petersburg, spend a few hundred dollars on advertising and auction and sell all of the lots in two or three hours, they wonder. About 99 percent of those lots were for sale as soon as the buyer had a title.”

By contrast, in the early 30s he could not sell his hogs or cattle; the prices were the lowest in history. He owned about 350 acres in 1933. He comments ruefully about the land, saying, “but you could not eat it, neither could you sell it for any money and there was very little change in conditions for at least six years.”