page_title: Temple Terrace, Florida
section_title: Spanish exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Temple Terrace, Florida / History / Spanish exploration
caption_attribution_description: English: The earliest known map of the Tampa Bay area. It is by Spanish explorer Don Francisco Maria Celi of the Spanish Royal Fleet, 1757. This copy is from the South Florida History Museum, the original is in the Museo Naval de Madrid, Spain. The river on the upper left of the map is the Hillsborough, the area designated as "El Pinal de la Cruz de Santa Teresa" is today in Temple Terrace. "El Salto" are the rapids at Hillsborough River State Park, where the journey ended. The map is oriented so that east is to the top.
context_page_description: Temple Terrace is an incorporated city in northeastern Hillsborough County, Florida, United States, adjacent to Tampa. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 24,541. It is the third and smallest incorporated municipality in Hillsborough County. Incorporated in 1925, the community is known for its rolling landscape, bucolic Hillsborough River views, and majestic trees; it has the most grand sand live oak trees of any place in central Florida and is a Tree City USA. Temple Terrace was originally planned as a 1920s Mediterranean-Revival golf course community and is one of the first such communities in the United States.
  Temple Terrace was named for the then-new hybrid, the Temple orange, also called the tangor. It is a cross between the mandarin orange — also called the tangerine — and the common sweet orange; it was named after Florida-born William Chase Temple, one-time owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates, founder of the Temple Cup, and first president of the Florida Citrus Exchange. Temple Terrace was the first place in the United States where the new Temple orange was grown in large quantities.
context_section_description: Spanish exploration of the Temple Terrace area dates back to 1757 when explorer Don Francisco Maria Celi of the Spanish Royal Fleet made his way up the Hillsborough River (naming it "El Rio de San Julian y Arriaga") to what is now Riverhills Park in search of pine trees to use as masts for his ships. Here, in the extensive longleaf pine forest, he erected a cross in what he named "El Pinal de la Cruz de Santa Teresa" (the Pine Forest of the Cross of Saint Theresa). Confirmation of the fleet's travels is found in its map and log book. A historic marker and a replica of the cross erected to honor St. Theresa is found in Riverhills Park today. Up to 1913, the longleaf pine, sand live oak, and cypress trees made the area suitable for turpentine manufacturing and logging.
caption: The earliest known map of the Tampa Bay area. It is by Spanish explorer Don Francisco Maria Celi of the Spanish Royal Fleet, 1757. This copy is from the South Florida History Museum; the original is in the Museo Naval de Madrid, Spain. The river on the upper left of the map is the Hillsborough, and the area designated as "El Pinal de la Cruz de Santa Teresa" is today in Temple Terrace. "El Salto" are the rapids at Hillsborough River State Park, where the journey ended.  The map is oriented so that east is to the top.
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