Friday Evening June 2, 2006
Scrumptious Conch Fritters and delectable Jerk Chicken were the first
course du jour of the evening for PCR publisher Nolan Canova and me
before embarking on the Ghost Tour at Jungle Prada which is conducted
by Ghost Tour St. Petersburg
, billed as “the
original Ghost Tour of St. Petersburg based on the book Ghost Stories of
St. Petersburg, FL” by author Tim Reeser, who also penned “Ghost
Stories Tampa Florida” (which happens to have a rather reconstituted
version of my haunting at 3016 Villa Rosa Park which is featured in PCR
#188).
After exemplary food by Chef Matteo and his staff, as well as excellent
service by a waitress originally from Colombia named Yvette, at
Saffron’s Caribbean Restaurant and Catering, Nolan and I left the restaurant and
walked across the street to Jungle Prada Park, a City of St. Petersburg
park located on Park Street along the shoreline of Boca Ciega Bay.
There waiting for us was Ghost Tour docent Bob. Bob, who also
conducts the Downtown St. Petersburg Ghost Tour that I first attended
on Saturday April 29, 2006 with Beth Blechschmidt, Jen Thompson and Josh
Sullivan.
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Ghost Tour St. Petersburg ghost host Bob forewarns us foolish mortals of what we can expect to see and experience in our Ghost Tour at Jungle Prada. |
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There was already a small crowd of people gathered at a picnic table
around Bob and his sweet wife and assistant, Anita, when Nolan and I
walked up just prior to our embarking into a journey with the unknown.
The location was magical. The smell of the adjacent salt water of Boca
Ciega Bay wafted in on a warm gentle breeze that belied the tropical
nature of our environs. An ancient Indian mound covered with moss draped
Live Oaks and lush Cabbage Palms rustling in the windward breezes lay to
the south of our temporary gathering point.
The Indian mound was the center point of this journey where the
tributaries and rivers of time culminated into a present day ocean of
history involving many different players on many different paths of
life…and death.
Dead Man’s Key
With all of us tourists present and accounted for, Bob struck a match
and placed its flame onto the wick of a candle encased by a glass
lantern. Our tour was officially starting. We stood up from the picnic
table and walked into the setting sun onto a boardwalk surrounded by
towering Mangroves growing along the fringes of Boca Ciega Bay. As we
gazed to the west, we surveyed the sun setting over the black silhouette
of an island called Dead Man’s Key. It is reported that ghost lights
have been seen on this island, particularly during the month of August
when a very terrible event occurred there in 1862.
Back during the Civil War the portion of Hillsborough County we now call
Pinellas County had very few families living there. When the War broke
out, Florida found itself siding with the Confederacy, being the third
State to secede from the Union. Although Confederate sympathies ran high
in the Sunshine State, there were pockets of support for the Union,
nevertheless. One of these pockets of support for the Union came from
the Whitehurst family that lived near Boca Ciega Bay.
Egmont Key, located at the mouth of Tampa Bay where it empties into the
Gulf of Mexico, was a very important strategic location for the Union,
as well as in later years. This was because if the Union could retain
the lighthouse and encampment at Egmont Key, it could have an advantage
in both providing a naval presence to blockade goods from being shipped
to and from Confederate forces inland, as well as accommodating
provisions for nearby Union sympathizers such as the Whitehurst’s.
Pinellas County’s Only Civil War Battle
On March 16, 1862, Union forces shot cannon balls from Big Bayou onto
the land of Confederate sympathizer and blockade runner Abel “the cat”
Miranda. Miranda was a mullet (fish) rancher who also raised cattle and
citrus. Union soldiers then sailed to his land where they landed and
took possession of his boats, burned down his house and forty of his
citrus trees, as well as took as much of his livestock as possible,
killing what remaining livestock could not fit back onto their boats.
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PCR publisher Nolan Canova (on right) walks with some fear and trepidation along with others as Bob leads out on the boardwalk of Jungle Prada park to Boca Ciega Bay for our first ghostly encounter.
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Enraged over this act, Miranda took revenge by mortally wounding
brothers Scott and John Whitehurst in August of 1862. The brothers were
in a boat that was filled with provisions at Egmont Key and were heading
back up Boca Ciega Bay to their homes when Miranda fired upon them,
instantly killing Scott who died near present day Dead Man’s Key.
Scott was subsequently buried at Mullet Key (now known as present day
Ft. DeSoto). John later died from his gunshot wounds and was buried on
September 2, 1862 at Egmont Key near the lighthouse.
Dead Man’s Key is only accessible by boat, as is Egmont Key where John
Whitehurst is buried, but Ft. DeSoto, now a Pinellas County park, is
accessible by automobile, although the burial place of Scott Whitehurst
is unknown by this author.
The Jungle Prada Indian Mound
As orange skies gave way to creeping hues of cobalt blue signaling the
advent of night time, we walked inland from the maritime murders of
Miranda toward an even more significant event in history - - the advent
of the European in Florida.
The shrills of peacock cries filled the air as we walked up the western
escarpment of the ancient Tocobaga Indian mound now known as the Jungle
Prada. Two of our touring members were already “lost”. .. Anita, and a
lady sensitive to psychic phenomenon, had not yet joined our group. We
had made our way to the top where amongst other things, we experienced
the silhouette against the final rays of zodiacal light of a peacock
nestled in one of the sprawling Live Oak trees.
Bob next presented us with tale of the Tocobaga people and their
wholesale slaughter at the hands of the Spanish.
The Tocobaga Indians
The Tocobaga Indians numbered at least 20,000 and lived from the
Charlotte Harbor area to north of Tampa Bay between 900 and 1,500 A.D.
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A beautiful sun sets over Boca Ciega Bay and Dead Man’s Key where the spirits of John and Scott Whitehurst are said to be seen as ghost lights floating over the island at night. |
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Tocobaga villages had a centralized public area that was used as a
meeting place. Their houses were typically cylindrical in shape with
wooden poles holding up a roof that consisted of palm thatches. Mounds
were built within these villages and consisted of earth, shell and
stones. The Chiefs houses and the tribal temples were built on these
mounds. Such mounds were once as large as 100’ long by 30’ tall. Burial
mounds for the Tocobaga dead were by comparison typically located
outside of the main villages.
In addition to these mounds, there were similar, yet smaller structures
called middens. Middens were located next to tribal kitchens and
consisted primarily of discarded shellfish, as well as discarded game
and kitchen pottery. Tocobaga villages were known to exist in present
day Safety Harbor, Ballast Point, Terra Ceia and Tierra Verde, as well
as Maximo Point and of course, the Jungle Prada.
April 15, 1528; Panfilo de Narvarez Arrives
Imagine if a fleet of alien spacecraft arrived in your neighborhood with
an array of advanced weaponry wielded by beings with vastly superior
scientific abilities. That might be how Tocobagan villagers felt when
they saw five ships filled with 400 Spanish explorers or conquistadors
(other sources cite between 250 to 600) sail upon their shores at the
Jungle Prada on April 15, 1528.
Appointed by the Spanish governor or adelantado of Florida, Emperor
Charles V, Panfilo de Narvarez (also known as Panfilo de Narvaez, born
Castile, Spain 1470 A.D.), a cruel, stupid, incompetent and ruthless
man, led this ill-fated expedition in what would end up being the first
exploration by Europeans of North America.
Immediately upon his arrival, de Narvarez proved to be disastrous for
the Tocobagan people. When he visited the village at Safety Harbor
(adjacent to present day Philippe Park) he immediately got into a
dispute with the village Chief Hirrihigua. In the dispute, he injured
Hirrihigua, whose mother was incensed at the act of violence and
intervened. She was immediately hacked to death with the disgorged and
dismembered pieces of her body being fed by de Nararez to his pet
greyhounds.
Within 100 years of de Narvarez’s arrival, the Tocobaga became
extinct, either by being murdered or dying from diseases as a result of
the arrival of the Europeans.
Regardless, de Narvarez, who also helped conquer Cuba in 1511, led
what was generally a disastrous expedition. In addition to losing his
men to fights with the native Indians, hurricanes also took a toll,
including de Narvarez himself who was reported to have perished in
November 1528 when his own ship was blown out into the Gulf of Mexico
somewhere between Florida and Louisiana.
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca
One of the most colorful characters in de Narvarez’s expedition was
Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (1490-1559).
de Vaca was a scribe and secretary on the expedition. He along with
three others, former slave Estevanico, Andres de Dorantes (Corranza),
and Alonso del Castillo Maldonado, were the only four explorers to
survive the expedition. After their arrival to the Jungle Prada, they
explored what are now the United States states of Texas, New Mexico and
Arizona, having complete that portion of the journey on foot from
coastal Louisiana to Sinaloa, Mexico.
de Vaca’s journey took six years, during most of which he was naked
and lived as a slave. He returned to Europe in 1537, and wrote of his
incredible experiences in a report to Emperor Charles V. The report was
published in 1542 and titled La Relacion (The Report).
Alphonse “Scarface” Capone
After Bob “spirited” us back down from the ancient mound, nighttime
settled in and we surveyed the vacant property that had a house that was
so plagued by ghosts and strange activities that it was torn down, never
to have another structure built on the land.
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Lantern to his back, Bob delves into the history of the Tocobaga Indian mound at Jungle Prada. A small white orb can be seen floating above the orange glow of Bob’s lantern, shown here at the summit of the mound. The spirit of a Tocobaga Indian or Spanish Conquistador?
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We then crossed Park Street and went to the remnants of the development
known as the Jungle Prada. The Jungle Prada was itself a shopping
center built by developer Walter Fuller in 1924. It was built to serve
customers staying at Fuller’s Country Club Hotel (now the Admiral
Farragut Academy). Fuller removed one of the largest Tocobaga mounds in
order to accomplish the building of this shopping complex, a pattern of
which would sadly be repeated many times at Tocobaga mounds located
throughout the Tampa Bay area over the years.
Amongst one of its more unsavory occupants was Alphonse “Scarface”
Capone (1899-1947). A Neapolitan born in Brooklyn, New York, Al Capone
was one of America’s most historic and infamous gangsters during the
1920’s and early 1930’s. As his activities in New York City were
catching up with him, he was secreted to Chicago, Illinois, where he
rose to even greater prominence, being the architect of the deadly “St.
Valentine’s Day Massacre”.
Capone had properties and “speakeasies” throughout the United States
during the Prohibition era. In addition to having a palatial mansion in
Miami, Capone also had a house in the old Northeast section of St.
Petersburg, and ran a speakeasy called the Gangplank, which was
located on the grounds of Walter Fuller’s Jungle Prada shopping
complex. The Gangplank saw top national acts performed there by
artists such as Count Basie and Duke Ellington. Capone ran rum into the
night club by having devised a tunnel between Boca Ciega Bay and a
basement in the club. A great web site to visit on this subject is “the
Famous and Infamous” portion of A Virtual History of St. Petersburg
by Dr. Merle F.
Allshouse and Nancy Thorne.
Our tour ended at what was formerly the Gangplank, and is now a part
of the wonderful Saffron’s Caribbean Restaurant and Catering which is
operated by Edyth James who is magnanimous enough to let the Ghost
Tour convene in the “Al Capone Room” for after tour drinks and some
paranormal jaw-jackin’.
Although I enjoyed the downtown St. Petersburg Ghost Tour, I enjoyed
the Jungle Prada version even better as it was more intimate, involved
less walking and was in many ways, more historic. Either are highly
recommended by this author, and I even more highly recommend that you
see both!
Reservations for the Ghost Tour St. Petersburg are required and can be
obtained by calling 727-894-4678. Tours are held year round, with
private, corporate, student and step-on tours available any time. The
Downtown St. Petersburg Ghost Tour is typically held Saturdays
starting at 8 P.M., while The Ghost Tour at Jungle Prada is typically
held Fridays starting at 8 P.M.
Pick up the phone and give Tim Reeser a call. Bob, Anita and the Ghost
Tour St. Petersburg staff will be “lurking forward” to seeing you!
"La Floridiana" is ©2006 by William Moriaty. Webpage design and all graphics herein (except where otherwise noted) are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2006 by Nolan B. Canova.
