South St. Pete – Did you know?
Did you know that St. Petersburg was named because of a coin toss?
St. Petersburg is nicknamed the Sunshine City. Why? Maybe because St. Pete holds a Guinness World Record for logging the most consecutive days of sunshine—a stretch that began in 1967 and lasted 768 days.
The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, at 4.1 miles across, is one of the largest cable suspension bridges in the Western Hemisphere, rising 19 stories above Tampa Bay at its midpoint.
St. Pete is the birthplace of scheduled aviation, with the flight of the Benoist Airboat, and the birthplace of Major League Baseball Spring Training—both in 1914.
South St. Pete is the home of historic 22nd Street S – the Deuces – where the Manhattan Casino once welcomed world class performers such as Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald, and once a busy thoroughfare where Black businesses thrived during segregation.
It’s also the neighborhood where the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum is striving to make its mark and share stories of Black St. Petersburg and others of the African diaspora.
It’s the home of The African American Heritage Trails: walking tours of 19 markers that provide details about the history and influence of the African American community in St. Petersburg. The story begins with the pioneers and the arrival of the first African Americans in 1868 and weaves through the civil rights era ending in 1968. The African-American Heritage Project identified people and places significant to African-American history in St. Petersburg and included businesses, churches, schools, social clubs, cemeteries, houses, and recreation areas.
Some places and events at the Deuces: Movies at the Royal, Deuces Sidewalk Market, Holidays on the Deuces Winter Festival, Black Wall Street Block Party, Breakfast on the Deuces, Cultured Books, and our own Easy Kleen Laundromat.
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