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© St. Petersburg Times, published March 8, 2003
ZEPHYRHILLS -- When 90-year-old Owen Gall first came to town, about 700 people lived here.
Vance Forbes can still picture the railroad track that used to run straight through the center of town carrying passengers and mail.
John Geiger said the train station used to be where a Village Inn now sits.
As the city celebrates Founders Day with a "Cracker Heritage" festival and parade today, members of some long-established families talked about changes in Zephyrhills and what it was like to live here way back when.
Forbes, 88, grew up in Zephyrhills and got his first job at Frank Krusen's sawmill, working from dawn to dark in the office.
"Pay was $5 a week, but I had a job," Forbes said this week.
His mother, Norna, was an avid gardener and eventually opened the city's first florist, Forbes Flower Shop on the corner of U.S. 301 and Fourth Avenue.
His father, Frank Forbes, served as a deputy sheriff in Dade City and as chief of police in Zephyrhills. The city showed its gratitude by naming Forbes Road for him.
"He had a good rapport with all the young people here in town," Forbes said of his father.
After serving in the military during World War II, Vance Forbes came back in need of a job. He quickly decided he didn't like digging ditches and took a job at the post office. It was like working the front counter of the whole city.
"At that time I could say I knew most everyone in town, new people and old, because I worked at the counter in the post office," he said.
Mail came in twice a day on the train, and someone would load it into a wheelbarrow and haul it over to the post office.
"When I retired (in 1972) we were getting mail in semi-trucks, just for Zephyrhills," Forbes said.
The postmaster who hired Forbes was Lola Gall, who held the position for 25 years. She also ran a restaurant called Orange Blossom Cafeteria on Fifth Avenue while raising four sons.
"Mother had a time with all men around," her son, Owen, said.
Gall Boulevard, the main north-south artery running through the city, honors his father, Walter R. Gall, who used his influence in Tallahassee to get the highway routed through Zephyrhills.
Owen Gall said his father was well known throughout the state but remained a Zephyrhills resident until his death at age 91.
"He always kept this as his home," Gall said.
Owen Gall also served in World War II and went into the citrus business when he returned.
"I came back and planted orange groves and grapefruit," he said.
His Sunnyside Groves rolled across 300 acres now occupied by Publix, Wal-Mart and East Pasco Medical Center, along the road bearing his family name.
He remembers hitchhiking along the dirt roads in the city, all of which are paved over now and busy with cars from Michigan and Canada.
Both Forbes and Gall said there was never much to do for fun in Zephyrhills, and even then, young people would leave town in search of a good time.
"On a Sunday afternoon we would drive down to Tampa and go to a little restaurant," Forbes said. "It was just a drive-in under a bunch of oak trees, but it was a gathering place for lots of young people."
Gall remembers swimming in Crystal Springs, a spot now closed to the public.
John Geiger, 66, has distant relatives all over Zephyrhills. He's part of the expansive web of descendants of Abram Elias Geiger, a pioneer resident and John's great-great grandfather. Abram Geiger settled in the area around 1900 with his 12 sons.
"There's a lot of Geigers around, and most of them are descendents of one of the 12," said Geiger, whose wife is City Council member Elizabeth Geiger. "They're all kind of cousins of mine."
Generations of Geigers are buried at the Geiger Cemetery on Geiger Road. The first person laid to rest there was a family member killed in the Civil War.
Today the cemetery has its own association, and anyone wishing to be buried there has to somehow be related to the family.
But even as a member of one of the founding families, John Geiger said recent growth has caused the city to lose some of its small-town familiarity.
"It's a place where I knew everybody when I first came here, and now I don't know hardly anybody," he said.
Owen Gall, a resident of nine decades, gets lost driving around town. Vance Forbes said virtually no area of Zephyrhills looks like it used to.
"You remember as it used to be, a quiet little town, and see how all of this growth has come in on us," Forbes said. "I felt as though I would see the time in my lifetime that Tampa would be built onto Zephyrhills and Zephyrhills would go up to Dade City. That, I think, is almost true now."
But the expansion is due in part, Forbes said, to the area's charm.
"Word of mouth got around that this was a nice place to live and it was quiet," he said. "They'd tell their friends and neighbors. You still find that friendliness here."
-- Molly Moorhead covers news about Zephyrhills. She can be reached at (352) 521-5757 or toll-free 1-800-333-7505, ext. 6108, then 29. Her e-mail address is moorhead@sptimes.com