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BRIAN WHITEThings are looking up in Sulphur Springs, where a bustling public pool and interest in local landmarks point toward revival.
TAMPA - In many ways, the white water tower that stands over Sulphur Springs represents the whole neighborhood. It is in poor repair, with a weathered facade and graffiti-stained interior. Pigeons live inside. It has seen better days.
But it has not been forgotten. Its future seems bright and not just because the city recently began lighting it from dusk until dawn.
Throughout Sulphur Springs, residents and local government officials are working to improve everything from public spaces to front yards, including plans for a park around the tower.
The neighborhood covers about 1 square mile, bounded by the Hillsborough River to the south, Interstate 275 and Florida Avenue to the west, a rail line to the east and Busch Boulevard to the north. Once an attraction for tourists drawn to the natural springs, Sulphur Springs is now mostly residential.
People who have lived in the area for years have seen a lot of changes, many of them for the worse. They are glad to see positive things finally starting to happen.
Decades ago, snowbirds dominated much of the area. It wasn't as crowded, especially in the summer, said Edna Freeland, who has lived in Sulphur Springs with her husband, Don, since 1946.
"Really, it was retired people coming from the north," said Freeland, 84. "A lot of them would buy these little houses and live in them months" in the winter.
But that changed when people began buying the one-story houses and converting them into apartments with up to four units. Residents became more transient, and many yards turned into eyesores with old mattresses and cars on blocks.
"What really hurt Sulphur Springs was when these duplexes came in here," Freeland said.
Many of the new landlords let their properties deteriorate.
Linda Hope, vice president of the Sulphur Springs Action League, grew up in the area. She left for many years and was shocked upon returning in 1984, when she took over the Penny Saver Weekly News.
"I was driving around and I said, "What's happened here?' " said Hope, 62.
Within a year, she and other residents formed the Action League. In 1987, they persuaded the Tampa City Council to change the zoning to allow only single-family homes. Old duplexes could stay, but any that became vacant for more than months had to revert to single-family homes.
Since then, at least 125 duplexes have been converted, Hope said.
Today, driving along the area's tree-lined streets, you still pass discarded mattresses. But it is much better than it used to be, Hope said. The city's NEAT program did a cleanup in March, hauling away garbage and cleaning the streets. The Action League has also enlisted the help of city code enforcement officers to target problem properties.
"Either clean them up or tear them down," Freeland said.
What most people see of Sulphur Springs is the tower and the Tampa Greyhound Track as they whiz by on I-275 at Bird Street. But it didn't used to be so easy to miss.
Before the highway was built in the early 1970s, Nebraska Avenue was the main road into Tampa. Hotels lined the road, many of them in Sulphur Springs, which became part of Tampa in 1953.
Sulphur Springs emerged as a tourist destination in the early 20th century, said Rodney Powell, curator of the Tampa Bay History Center.
"Anglos started coming to the area in large numbers in the 1880s," Powell said. "It wasn't until the turn of the century that they really began to be commercialized."
Two men saw the profit potential in the supposedly healing springs.
J.H. Mills built some attractions, including a Ferris wheel, Powell said.
But it was Josiah Richardson who really created Sulphur Springs in the 1920s. He built a gazebo near one of the springs with the letter R on each face. He also opened an arcade on Nebraska, which held a sheriff's office, barber, grocery store and several shops.
"It was a modern mall basically, well before its time," Powell said.
Freeland remembers visiting the arcade.
"It was a nice place to go in the afternoon," she said. "They had a drugstore and you could get an ice cream cone."
These developments were designed to lure residents to the homes Richardson built in the area, Powell said.
Richardson constructed the water tower on another spring to provide water to the houses. He designed it to look like a medieval tower, with slit windows and battlements crowning the holding tank. He planned an elevator in the tower to take visitors to an observation deck.
Then came the Depression and, in 1935, a flood that devastated the area. Richardson pulled out before his vision was fully realized. He never built the elevator.
The neighborhood did not pick up again until after World War II. The arcade was torn down in 1975 to make way for a parking lot for the dog track. Duplexes began appearing in the 1980s, about the same time the city closed the springs to swimmers because of pollution.
But the fight against the duplexes gave the neighborhood hope.
Five years ago, the city opened the Sulphur Springs pool - considered by many the nicest public pool in Tampa. It stands next to the main spring, which has "NO SWIMMING" signs posted around it.
Day camps from all over the city bring kids to the pool during the summer. The pool is part of Sulphur Springs Park, which has a playground and observation areas for watching fish and manatees that sometimes swim in the Hillsborough River and the lagoon that feeds into the river from the spring.
For some children, the pool offers opportunities they might not have otherwise, said Lisa Sims, a counselor for the Riverfront Park day camp. She brings 24 kids to the pool four days a week.
"We have three kids who hadn't even been in a pool before," she said.
The park includes Josiah Richardson's gazebo, which is closed to the public. The spring water beneath it soaked into the concrete and rusted the metal reinforcing bars, making the gazebo unsafe, said Tom Johnston, urban planner for Tampa's Parks and Recreation Department.
The city plans to refurbish the two-story gazebo to use for weddings and bands, he said.
A plan for the gazebo and water tower will be finished next summer, Johnston said. The state gave the city a $97,000 historic preservation grant, and the city's parks department contributed $113,000 to complete the study.
The water tower park will connect to the Sulphur Springs Park with a trail under I-275. The city will restore the shoreline of the river and make it more accessible to the public, Johnston said.
As for the tower itself, a lot of work remains, he said. For years, teenagers sneaked inside and covered the walls with graffiti. The most recent artwork was for Megadeth, a heavy metal band popular in the 1980s.
Since then, the city sealed the tower's cypress doors with concrete and barred the windows.
The tower is one of only about 20 architecturally decorated water towers in the country, Johnston said.
The parks department would eventually like to realize Richardson's dream and install an elevator in the 224-foot tower for public viewing. He said the view would compare to that from Busch Garden's new 200-foot roller coaster, SheiKra.
The city's work in Sulphur Springs caps the neighborhood's efforts to make the area more attractive to residents and potential visitors, said Hope, the Action League vice president.
"We busted our butts for 20 years," she said. "We're really starting to see some good things."
Brian White can be reached at bwhite@sptimes.com
SULPHUR SPRINGS LANDMARKS- Water tower
- Tampa Greyhound Track
- Sulphur Springs Park and pool
- Springs Theatre
- Harbor Club
- Alaskan-themed streets, including Alaska, Arctic, Brooks, Fairbanks, Juneau, Klondike, Nome, Seward, Sitka and Yukon streets, and Eskimo and Skagway avenues