James Gadsden, after whom Gadsden Point is named, lent his friend's name to Fort Brooke.
By MICHAEL CANNING
Published August 15, 2003
The Tampa Convention Center has the distinction of being on the site of Fort Brooke, the Army outpost that began Tampa. But a little-known piece of land on the southeastern tip of the South Tampa peninsula also played a role in the city's founding.
That's where, in 1824, James Gadsden stuck a stick in the sand with a piece of muslin and note addressed to Lt. Col. George Brooke, who saw it as he sailed into the Hillsborough Bay.
The note told him to look for Gadsden at the top of the bay, at the mouth of the Hillsborough River, right next to a tall hickory tree.
Brooke found his old friend and fulfilled his mission of establishing a fort that would help the government deal with the Indians.
Gadsden proposed the fort be named for Brooke, who reciprocated by naming the beach where he found the note Gadsden Point.
Gadsden was born in Charleston, S.C., in 1788. He graduated from Yale University, joined the Army and, under the patronage of John C. Calhoun and Andrew Jackson, saw his military career flourish in the 1810s.
He served as Jackson's personal aide and engineer during the First Seminole War of 1817-18. In 1820, Gadsden resigned from the Army when the U.S. Senate refused to appoint him as the Army's adjutant general.
Gadsden returned to Florida the following year when he was appointed as an Indian commissioner for Florida. A few weeks after helping to establish Fort Brooke, Gadsden sailed south from Tampa Bay to explore the Manatee River.
In 1840, he became president of the Louisville, Cincinnati & Charleston Railroad. Gadsden benefitted from another friend in 1853 when then-war secretary Jefferson Davis helped him become the U.S. minister to Mexico.
Later that year, Gadsden negotiated the $10-million purchase of land from Mexico that stretches from the Texas panhandle to southern California. Known as the Gadsden Purchase, it resolved border disputes lingering from the Mexican War and provided a rail route that linked the southern United States with the Pacific coast.
Gadsden died in 1858.
Today, Gadsden Point is part of the Bay Palms Golf Complex at MacDill Air Force Base. The city's Gadsden Park is located just outside the base's MacDill Avenue gate.
- Source: Tampa Bay History Center, MacDill Air Force Base.
