| Please Provide Information |
|
| |
|
|
|
| Tampa Apartment Locator Services : Tampa Apartments |  | Contents | |
| History |
| The word "Tampa" is an American Indian
word used to refer to the area when the first European explorers arrived in Florida.
Its meaning, if any, has been lost to the ages, though it is sometimes claimed
to mean "sticks of fire" in the language of the Calusa, a Native American
tribe. Other historians claim the name refers to "The place to gather sticks".
"Sticks of fire" may also relate to the high concentration of lightning
strikes that Tampa Bay receives every year during the hot and wet summer months. |
Spanish conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez
was the first European known to have visited the Tampa area, on April 8, 1528.
Hernando DeSoto arrived a year later to rescue the only remaining living member
of de Narváez's expedition. A peace treaty was conducted with the local
Indians and a short-lived Spanish outpost was established, but this was abandoned
when it became clear that there was no gold in the area, and that the local Indians
were not interested in converting to Catholicism and were too skilled as warriors
to easily conquer. | Tampa was incorporated
in 1849 with 185 inhabitants (excluding military personnel stationed at Fort Brooke),
and Judge Joseph B. Lancaster became the first Mayor in 1856. During the Civil
War, Fort Brooke was occupied by Confederate troops, and martial law was declared
in Tampa. In 1862, a Union gunboat shelled the city during the Battle of Tampa.
Union forces took Fort Brooke in May of 1864, and occupied the town for the next
year. | | | | |
| | |
|
