Zephyrhills, FL
Known as Skydive City — the GA airport behind the world's most active dropzone. Skydive City Z-Hills hosts the World Free Fall Convention; multiple world-record formation jumps have launched from these Twin Otters and Skyvans. Pilots flying in watch 200-skydiver formations exit at 13,500ft. Was Zephyrhills Army Airfield in WWII, training B-17 crews on flexible gunnery.
Lakeland Linder hosts Sun 'n Fun every April — the second-largest fly-in aviation event in the United States, after EAA Oshkosh. 200,000+ visitors, 4,000+ aircraft, the Florida warbird flyovers, daily airshow with the Blue Angels or Thunderbirds. Permanent buildings include the Florida Air Museum (year-round), Aerospace Center for Excellence, and the historic Piedmont Airlines DC-3. KLAL is the airport; the grounds are on the field.
Henry Bradley Plant built the western half of modern Florida. While Henry Flagler was running the East Coast Railway from Jacksonville to Key West, Plant was running the South Florida Railroad from Sanford through Tampa to Port Tampa, and steamships from there to Havana. The two men did not get along. In 1891 Plant opened the Tampa Bay Hotel — a 511-room, 250-acre Moorish Revival fantasy resort meant to outshine anything Flagler had built. The building stretches a quarter-mile along the west bank of the Hillsborough River and is topped by six silver minarets, four cupolas, and three domes — all designed to evoke an Alhambra-by-the-Gulf. Plant paid $2.5 million in 1891 dollars (roughly $90 million today). He brought in furniture and art from his world travels — five steamships full. The interior was wired for electricity, included an early elevator (the first in Tampa), telephones in every room, en-suite bathrooms, and a 2,000-volume library. Rooms cost $5 a night; Plant's wife Margaret personally welcomed every guest. The hotel hosted Frederick Remington, Stephen Crane, Clara Barton, Theodore Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill. During the Spanish-American War (1898) it served as the staging headquarters for the US Army's Cuba expedition; Roosevelt and the Rough Riders trained on the grounds. Babe Ruth signed his first major-league contract here in 1919. The hotel struggled after Plant's death (1899) and the rise of automobile travel; by 1932 the City of Tampa owned it. In 1933 the south wing reopened as the University of Tampa, which still occupies the building today. The Henry B. Plant Museum, which opened in 1933 in a portion of the ground floor, preserves the original furnishings and Plant family artifacts in their original rooms. The minarets — wrapped in stainless steel for hurricane resistance, topped with bulbous onion domes — are the most distinctive skyline feature in central Tampa, visible from miles up the river.
Edward Bok's 1929 carillon tower — 205 feet of Georgia marble and pink Etowah stone, with a 60-bell carillon that performs daily concerts. Set in 250 acres of gardens designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. on Iron Mountain, central Florida's highest point at 295 feet. National Historic Landmark. Quiet sanctuary 25 miles from the Disney chaos. Lake Wales sits in citrus country.
Marker on the St. Petersburg waterfront where, on January 1, 1914, pilot Tony Jannus took off in a Benoist XIV flying boat with St. Pete's Mayor Abram Pheil aboard, landing 23 minutes later in Tampa across the bay. The St. Petersburg–Tampa Airboat Line — fare $5 — was the world's first scheduled commercial airline flight. Operated four months, then folded; but the precedent stood. The Tony Jannus Award is given annually for distinguished commercial aviation contribution. The memorial sits at Spa Beach Park near the modern Pier.