Pirate Invasion Takes Place On County's 186th Birthday

TAMPA, FL — As Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla pirates scramble ashore and parade along Bayshore Boulevard into downtown Tampa Saturday, Hillsborough County will celebrate its 186th birthday.

The shared date is merely coincidental. But it gives Hillsborough County residents another reason to celebrate during the area's signature annual event.

Hillsborough County was much larger in size, but far less populated when Florida's governor and Legislative Council established it on Jan. 25, 1834.

Back then, the county comprised what now are Hillsborough, Pinellas, Polk, Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, DeSoto, Hardee and Highlands counties, along with parts of Glades and Lee counties. Its population was just 836, not including soldiers and Native Americans.

The United States was just 57 years old, and Andrew Jackson was president. Florida was a territory, and would not become a state for another 11 years. Most locals lived in the village of Tampa. The remainder of sprawling Hillsborough County was sparsely populated.

Hillsborough County, which takes its name from Wills Hill, British Secretary of State to the Colonies from 1768-1772, was first mapped and explored by the Spanish in the early 16th century. Between 1559 and 1819, the area now called Florida was under the rule of four nations: Spain, France, Great Britain and the United States. The United States purchased Florida from Spain in 1821 for $5 million. In 1845, Florida was granted statehood.

Here's a look at some significant events:

• Tampa became a city in 1855, the first of three Hillsborough County communities to do so. Plant City incorporated in 1885 and Temple Terrace gained stature as a city in 1925. The Hillsborough County Courthouse was erected in 1892 at the intersection of Madison and Franklin streets.
• Henry Plant extended his railroad to Hillsborough County in 1884, launched steamship service to Key West and Havana, Cuba, and. in 1891, opened the Tampa Bay Hotel on the west bank of the Hillsborough River. Henry Plant's Tampa Bay Hotel, now part of the University of Tampa, remains a landmark across the Hillsborough River from downtown Tampa.
• Phosphate was discovered in Hillsborough and Polk counties in the 1880s, and Vicente Martinez Ybor opened a cigar factory in Tampa in 1886. Both commodities became major exports and helped spur the county's population and workforce growth. Workers rolled cigars at one of many Tampa factories in the early 20th century. The cigar industry helped put Tampa on the map.
• Hillsborough County was the primary staging area for soldiers bound for the Spanish American War. Col. Teddy Roosevelt arrived in Tampa with his Rough Riders in 1898, before the cavalry unit departed for Cuba.
• Ruskin was founded in 1908 as a quasi-socialist community with a college, a saw mill, farms, businesses, houses and parks. The Ruskin Commongood Society floundered when the United States entered World War I in 1917. Many of the college's students joined the military or took jobs in distant cities.
• On New Year's Day in 1914, the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line initiated the first scheduled commercial airline service in the world, from St. Petersburg to Tampa.
• Tampa International Airport opened in 1950 replacing the aging Drew Field, a military training airbase. A second terminal opened two years later, and improvements and expansions have continued through the decades.
• Elvis Presley performed as a supporting act at Fort Homer Hesterly Armory in May 1955. He returned three more times in 1955 and 1956, ultimately as the headliner.
• President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. were among others who appeared at the armory, which is now the Bryan Glazer Family Jewish Community Center.
• The phosphate freighter Summit Venture hit a center span of the Sunshine Skyway bridge in May 1980, toppling the roadway into Tampa Bay. Thirty-five people died. The bridge's center spans - originally, there were twin bridges - are in Hillsborough County, due to the shipping channel beneath them.
• Hillsborough County's population swelled to one million residents around 2000. It continues to grow, now reaching about 1.35 million.