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A Swede who thought St. Petersburg "would never amount to anything" sent the name petition to Washington.
By SCOTT TAYLOR HARTZELL
© St. Petersburg Times, published February 14, 2001
ST. PETERSBURG -- More than a century ago, Josef Henschen saved the railroad that ultimately gave birth to this city.
Peter Demens' Orange Belt line was in economic distress in 1886, hundreds of miles from here. Henschen intervened and kept the operation chugging along.
"Had it not been for Henschen, the railroad project probably would have fallen through, and in all probability there would be no St. Petersburg today," historian Karl Grismer wrote in 1924.
Henschen later handled many of the railroad's problems while Demens sought additional financial backing. And it was Henschen who played a significant role in the naming of the city.
"It was Henschen's petition, not the luck of the draw, that put a little bit of Russia in the Florida gazetteer," historian Ray Arsenault wrote.
Born in 1843, Henschen was a 28-year-old university student in Upsalo, Sweden, when he was summoned to Florida by his brother.
Henschen brought with him more than 100 Swedish workers to help his brother build the city of Sanford. He spent the next 15 years enduring native Florida.
On Christmas Day 1871, Henschen and a friend camped in the Everglades with Seminole Indians. On the return trip north, his boat was rocked by waves and his supplies were lost. He went days without water.
He grew sick of Florida, but rather than wait for an overdue boat that would return him to Sweden, he stayed and spent many hungry days on land near Lake Jessup and Lake Maitland.
If his situation didn't improve in 10 years, Henschen vowed, he would leave Florida permanently. A Forest City orange grove investment in 1885 changed his fortune.
"Having so much cash, I moved to Lake Apopka and bought 1,444 acres from the government at $1.25 an acre," said Henschen, who married in 1885.
One year later, Demens asked Henschen to join the Orange Belt venture. "The road looked anything but good," Henschen recalled. "Their cash was spent and their stock of goods in the mill store was nearly gone."
Despite the gloom, Henschen invested $20,000 in the operation. Many then claimed he was the Orange Belt's savior. "The grading of the railroad would have stopped," Henschen said.
Although land later was donated to the cause, Demens often was forced to visit New York to solicit funds, leaving Henschen, A.M. Taylor and treasurer Henry Sweetapple to battle untold tribulations.
Supplies were slow to arrive and creditors demanded payment. A lien was placed on the company's property. Yellow fever swept through Florida.
When the train was chained to the tracks by creditors, Sweetapple died instantly from a stroke. Late wages prompted 500 men to nearly lynch Demens. Money trickled in, however, and the railroad inched along.
"Florida's piney woods resounded to the clash of steel," George W. Pettengil wrote in the Story of the Florida Railroads.
As the railroad meandered south, liquor and immoral women entered the camps. There were orgies and almost daily gunfights.
"On April 30th, 1888, the first (work) train (arrived), pulled by engine number six, with Bob Kennedy as engineer," Rita Straight Gould wrote in Pioneer St. Petersburg. "The first regular train clanged into the farm and fishing village" on June 8.
After the first year, the railroad owned 200,000 undesirable acres and owed $900,000 to a "syndicate of capitalists." Demens sold the operation in 1889 to the Philadelphia group for $25,250.
Henschen received $8,850, Demens $14,400 and Taylor $2,000. "These payments represented only a small part of the capital which the men had invested," Grismer wrote.
Historian Walter Fuller paid Henschen and his associates this tribute: "They were creators. They were doers. They could hold their heads with pride."
When Henschen was asked to name the town by postmaster E.R. Ward, he said calling it Sweetapple would doom it immediately. No one could spell Henschen, the Swede continued, and Demens wanted St. Petersburg.
"I signed a petition, got four others to sign it, and we sent it to Washington," Henschen explained. "That is the way St. Petersburg got its name."
In 1924, Henschen's only image of the city emanated from a picture circa 1886 he kept at his Oakland, Fla., home. It featured "sand flats, palmettos, straggly pine trees and not much else," Grismer wrote.
"I thought (St. Petersburg) would never amount to anything," said Henschen, then 81, "but I was wrong."
- Scott Taylor Hartzell can be contacted at Hartzel@gate.net.