The Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. warehouse closed years ago, but its new life is just beginning.
By CANDACE RONDEAUX
Published September 28, 2003
[Times photos: Douglas Clifford]
Michael Kousaleos, 80, and his father worked at the Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. warehouse after his family bought it in the 1950s. "It as a good place to talk. We'd all sit around on benches and we'd be clipping sponges and talking," he said. Kousaleos wants to donate the building to Heritage Village.
The Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. shipped three types of sponges, including the yellow sponge from its Tarpon Springs site.
TARPON SPRINGS - If you think you know everything there is to know about sponges, you probably haven't met Michael Kousaleos.
Kousaleos, 80, is not your average old-time sponge diver. In fact, he's only dived professionally once in his life and that was decades ago. But after selling sponges for nearly 50 years from one of the oldest warehouses in Tarpon Springs, there's precious little Kousaleos can't tell you about Tarpon Springs' oldest industry.
"It took people who didn't have any money to do it," Kousaleos said. "The sponge industry in Tarpon is a wonderful thing."
Although the paint on the wood-frame building where Kousaleos' once operated the Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. is now faded, its history is still vibrant. That's why the former president of the Tarpon Springs Sponge Exchange has offered to donate the building to Pinellas County's Heritage Village in Largo.
"It's a wonderful piece of Pinellas County history," said Ellen Babb, a Heritage Village historian and marketing coordinator.
Built by a Greek immigrant roughly 73 years ago, the former sponge warehouse would join 23 structures dating to the mid-19th century that make up the bulk of the historical exhibits at Heritage Village.
It would be in good company. The county-funded 21-acre historical village includes a school, a church, a railroad depot and other buildings. It fits Heritage Village's long-range plan to collect buildings that reflect the county's "temporal, geographic, economic and ethnic diversity," Babb said.
"We're not just a turn-of-the-century historical museum," she said. "We really want to be able to reflect the whole breadth of Pinellas County history."
Pinellas County commissioners are expected to approve acceptance of Kousaleos' donation of the warehouse in October, Babb said. After that, it's up to movers to work out the logistics of moving the one-story structure across the county to Largo. The costs of the move and restoration plans have not been determined, Babb said.
The Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. building is not the oldest standing sponge warehouse in Tarpon Springs, but it's probably a close runner-up, according to historians. The building is at the corner of Roosevelt Boulevard and Canal Street, less than a mile from the Sponge Docks, an area that once teemed with merchant activity. Built around 1930 by Greek immigrant Drosos Alahouzos, the warehouse was a key part of Tarpon Springs' thriving early 20th century economy.
Alahouzos split his time between Tarpon Springs and Philadelphia, where his sponge business was headquartered. Drosos traveled back and forth several times a year, buying sponges at the Tarpon Springs Sponge Exchange and then hiring workers to clip and bale them for shipping to Philadelphia.
Kousaleos' father, George, met Alahouzos in Pennsylvania where he had a sponge business of his own in Pittsburgh. When Alahouzos died in 1955 George Kousaleos bought the Roosevelt Boulevard warehouse from the estate. Father and son then operated the sponge business for years after it opened in 1957.
"This used to be filled up and up above it was just filled with sponges," Kousaleos said, sweeping his arm toward the rows of mostly empty oak and wire-mesh bins where sponges were kept.
"It was a good place to talk. We'd all sit around on benches and we'd be clipping sponges and talking," he said.
For the most part, the company traded in three types of sturdy gulf sponges - woolly Rock Island sponge, grass sea sponge and yellow sea sponge. But trips to the Greek island of Kalymnos, where high-quality Mediterranean sponges were readily purchased in abundance, were also a frequent feature of the Kousaleos family business.
"In my opinion, the Mediterranean sponge is the best," Kousaleos said.
The worst type of sponge, of course, is synthetic. The growing post-World War II market for synthetics and a blight that wiped out much of the gulf's sponge production combined to make the economics of the business rocky at times. By 1972, the Tarpon Springs warehouse was no longer operating regularly. Kousaleos' family continued doing business from their Pittsburgh office for some years after that, he said.
Now the family's historic role in the sponge industry will live on at the Heritage Village. Original tools will be displayed and the museum will include a detailed history of the sponge trade and the Kousaleos and Alahouzos families' contributions, Babb said.
"I don't think you could really put a value on a structure like this," Babb said. "Historically, it's invaluable. We sure would love a chance to preserve it."
- Times staff writer Richard Danielson contributed to this report. Candace Rondeaux can be reached at 727 771-4307 or rondeaux@sptimes.com
To help
Pinellas County officials are trying to find historic photos of the old Gulf of Mexico Sponge Co. warehouse and learn more about its early days and original owner. Anyone with photos or information can call Ellen Babb at (727) 582-2127.
