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What's Brewing

Mining for more old gold

By SUSAN THURSTON
Published February 10, 2006

Devin Marks' life changed forever in his grandmother's attic in Kentucky.

He was searching for mementos of his family's past when he came across a pile of newspapers dating to the 1890s.

The articles told stories of people and companies moving to Tampa, the new land of opportunity. Central to many was his great-great-grandfather, Col. Silas Armistead Jones, who traveled the country promoting Florida - and specifically Tampa - as a great place to invest.

Eager to learn more, Marks contacted relatives and Tampa historians to find other family nuggets. What he discovered was a black hole in history from 1875 to 1925. His family's clippings were a huge find, equal to hitting the lottery for scholarly types.

It turns out a big leather-bound book containing copies of the Tampa Daily Times from its debut in 1893 to 1912 disappeared after the Tampa Tribune bought the paper in the 1950s. Mice could have eaten it. A fire could have destroyed it.

Or it could be collecting dust under a living room couch in Old Hyde Park, Ballast Point or Palma Ceia.

The possibility jolts Marks from bed many mornings at 4:30.

Two years after the attic discovery, Marks, 35, is on a tear to find the lost book and any other tidbits from the period known as Tampa's boomtown. His heart pushed him to take the risk.

In late 2004, Marks sold a successful marketing business in Washington, D.C., and left his girlfriend and friends to delve full time into his heritage hunt. He realized that money and a fancy client list didn't matter so much. Relationships and community would define him.

He enlisted his cousin, Bruce Smathers, to help finance and promote the project. They founded Reclaiming Our Heritage, a nonprofit group charged with locating and archiving every missing article. First up is organizing the Florida Heritage Celebration, April 8-15.

In searching for the past, Marks has found much more: a sense of place for the first time in his life.

Born in upstate New York, Marks moved frequently as a child, landing wherever his dad got his next consulting job. He seldom knew his neighbors well and was homeschooled most of the time.

"I love the idea of a white picket fence and knowing the dog that bit you down the street seven years ago," he said.

He knew Tampa through his mother, whose father was a Methodist minister posted here twice. On occasion, the family would visit. They always ate at the Columbia Restaurant, his mother's favorite.

Tampa disappeared from his mind for years until he found the clippings amid family history books in his grandmother's house in 2003. He learned that the colonel arrived in Tampa on Christmas Day in 1876, on the verge of the region's population boom. He was friends with Henry B. Plant, who brought the railroad and its industrial might to Tampa. He loved orange juice.

Finding out the rest has become a self-fulfilling obsession for Marks, who lives in SoHo with a goldfish named Newsprint. He fills his days - and nights - with interviews, visits with historical groups and festival planning.

Clocks planted throughout his Harbour House apartment - next to his bed, over the bathroom mirror, even in the refrigerator, he says - count down the days, minutes and seconds to the festival. The ticking keeps him on task.

"Every minute of the day I'm doing this. I can't fritter away time," he said last week over coffee at Chavez at Home on Howard Avenue. "This is like a political campaign."

He hopes that by understanding his past, he will help others understand their own and Tampa's as a whole. He wants Tampa's rich history to shape a rich future.

Coinciding with Florida Heritage Month, March 15 through April 15, the festival will include various events and venues highlighting the boomtown years. It will start with a family day at Cracker Country and end with a vintage car show at Heritage Village in Largo. In between, lectures and a flapper dance.

The idea is to spark interest in people's roots. Get people talking about their great-great-uncle Harry, and maybe they'll pull out those yellowed articles and black and white photos packed away in the closet.

Maybe they'll wonder what's in that leather-bound book under the couch.

THE LAST DROP: For those football fans just coming up for air, the Tampa Bay Lightning are a skate-in for the playoffs this year (provided they don't log a lot more painful losses like Tuesday's). Several of our players battle one another for gold during the Olympics, which open tonight.

- Susan Thurston can be reached at 226-3394 or thurston@sptimes.com

[Last modified February 9, 2006, 09:10:11]