page_title: St. Petersburg, Florida
section_title: Twentieth century
hierarchical_section_title: St. Petersburg, Florida / History / Twentieth century
caption_attribution_description: English: Central Avenue, looking west, St. Petersburg, Florida; from a c. 1910 postcard published by the St. Petersburg Post Card Association.
context_page_description: St. Petersburg is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. As of the 2019 census estimate, the population was 265,351, making it the fifth-most populous city in Florida and the largest in the state that is not a county seat.
  St. Petersburg is the fifth-largest city in Florida and the second-largest city in the Tampa Bay Area, after Tampa. Together with Clearwater, these cities comprise the Tampa–St. Petersburg–Clearwater Metropolitan Statistical Area, the second-largest in Florida with a population of around 2.8 million. St. Petersburg is located on the Pinellas peninsula between Tampa Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, and is connected to mainland Florida to the north.
  St. Petersburg was founded in 1888 by John C. Williams, who purchased the land, and by Peter Demens who brought the railroad industry into the area. A coin toss bet was held between Williams and Demens to name this newly-formed community. Demens won the bet and subsequently named the land after Saint Petersburg, Russia. Williams was then granted the right to name the first hotel built. Both named their winnings after their personal hometowns. St.
context_section_description: St. Petersburg was incorporated as a city in June 1903. With this transition, the development of the downtown waterfront had dredging of a deeper shipping channel from 1906 to 1908 which opened St. Petersburg to larger shipping. Further dredging improved the port facilities through the 1910s. By then the city's population had quadrupled to a population of 4,127 citizens. F. A. Davis was instrumental to bringing the first trolley service in 1904.
  In 1914, the Tampa Bay area was one of the first Floridian cities that liked baseball tracing because of its origins from Tampa and St. Petersburg. The former mayor of St. Petersburg, Al Lang, had invited the St. Louis Browns to move their spring training into the city.
  
  St. Petersburg's first library opened on December 1, 1915 which still operates to this day as the Mirror Lake Library.
  In 1914 an airplane service across Tampa Bay from St. Petersburg to Tampa and back was initiated, generally considered the first scheduled commercial airline flight. The flight took former mayor Abe Pheil to Tampa.  The company name was the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line, and the pilot was Tony Jannus flying a Benoist XIV flying boat. The Tony Jannus Award is presented annually for outstanding achievement in the airline industry.
  The 1920s in St. Petersburg was big due to its major growth brought by tourists. Tourists came from all over by automobile, yacht, and railroad. Travel time from across the bay was cut due to the Gandy Bridge's opening in 1924, helping St. Petersburg increase in tourist numbers and helped grow it into the largest city in Pinellas County. The city also adopted the Mediterranean-style architecture brought by Snell Isles, founder of Perry Snell. An attraction that brought on a great number of tourists and citizens was the Million Dollar Pier which was built in 1926.
  The Mediterranean Revival makeover is evident in buildings still around today such as the Vinoy, Jungle Country Club Hotel and Princess Martha. 
  Tourism declined by the late 1920s and early 1930s due to the Great Depression. The city recovered later in the 1930s with the help of the Public Works Administration, including a $10 million investment plan in 1939 which helped build the St. Petersburg City Hall.
  
  By the 1940s, the city received population growth due to World War II. St. Petersburg was a training ground area for the U.S. Coast Guard which had a training base and used the city's Bayboro Harbor, and for the Army Air Force which was selected by the War Department to use the city as their technical service training station. With both stations occupying the city, more than 100,000 troops occupied all hotels in St. Petersburg. After the war, most troops who were stationed in St. Petersburg returned as residents or tourists.
  In the 1950s, St. Petersburg experienced another population increase with residents. The development of transportation was important with the increase of tourists, more automobiles were used in the city and subsequently the public street cars were removed. In 1954 the original Sunshine Skyway Bridge opened its first span to link St. Petersburg with Manatee County. A year later in 1955, Highway 19 opened in the city creating a large influx of traffic. By the end of the 1950s, tourists and retirees increased in the area.
  The development of major transportation continued into the 1960s with the completion of the Howard Frankland Bridge in 1960, creating another connection between St. Petersburg and Tampa. St. Petersburg also received its first stadium named the Bayfront Center which hosted the first professional hockey league in Tampa Bay. A new municipal marina and the Museum of Fine Arts were also built downtown. St. Petersburg is home to one of the world's largest reclaimed water systems that was built in the 1970s which flows 37 million gallons of water per day to provide for customers located throughout the city.
  From May to August 1968, 211 of the city's sanitation workers struck for higher wages. The strike began approximately one month after Martin Luther King, Jr.'s assassination
caption: Central Avenue c. 1910
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