Local & Family History Collections
Collection Detail
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The USF Special Collections Library maintains a number of archival, manuscript and photographic collections that document Tampa's rich history. The Collection documents the heritage of Tampa's Ybor City and West Tampa communities are prominently featured. |
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| Hillsborough County Marriage Records |
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 Dates: 1846 - 1988Availability: Licenses and an index of the records are online for the years 1878 - 1893. Users must consult the printed indices for the 1846 - 1877 and 1894 - 1988 periods. |
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| Description: Marriage licenses, record books and indices on deposit from the Clerk of the Hillsborough County Circuit Court. | |
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Funeral Home Records |
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 Description: In 1998, the Tampa firm of
Blount, Curry and Roel donated the funeral home records currently
maintained by Special Collections. The records include those of the
F.T. Blount Funeral Home and of two other funeral homes acquired by
Blount- the A.P. Boza Funeral Home and the Lord & Fernandez Funeral
Home. Also present are records for the Garden of Memories cemetery,
which Blount acquired in 1984. |
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| Coverage | |
| F.T. Blount Funeral Home Records: March 1924 - October 1991 | |
| A.P. Boza Funeral Home Records: January 1929 - October 1991: The A.P. Boza Funeral Home became a leading establishment within the Latin and Hispanic communities of Tampa by arranging funerals for many Spanish-speaking residents of Ybor City and West Tampa. This collection of records includes bound volumes of funeral information. Some volumes have name indices at the front, but there also are two separate, cumulative surname indices. In addition, there is an index of clients buried in Tampa's Martí / Colon Cemetery, located in West Tampa, and a collection of binders with forms generated by Boza's Riverside and Town & Country branch chapels, also located in predominantly Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. The Riverside and Town & Country binders cover the period June 1987 - October 1989. | |
| Lord & Fernandez Funeral Home Records: May 1947 - May 1951; January 1959 - March 1976: Ybor City's Latin community formed a large part of the Lord & Fernandez Funeral Home's clientele. Binders of pre-printed forms used to records funeral information comprise this collection. The forms, maintained chronologically by date, do not have a surname index. | |
| Garden of Memories Records: February 1984 - January 1989 | |
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Photographic Collections |
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 Aerial Photographs |
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| Coverage: Hillsborough County (1938, 1957,
1960, 1966, 1972, 1976, 1988); DeSoto County (1943, 1958); Hardee
County (1943, 1958); Polk County (1941, 1943, 1958) Description: Only the Hillsborough County aerials are indexed. Photographic reproductions are available upon request. |
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 Burgert Brothers Photographs |
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| Dates: ca. 1846 - 1960s (bulk: 1920s - 1930s) Description: Al and Jean Burgert established the pioneer, commercial photography studio Burgert Brothers in Tampa around 1917. Primarily focusing on the Tampa Bay area- including Ybor City, Port Tampa, Temple Terrace and Ballast Point- Burgert Brothers photographers captured Tampa's development from small town to major city, with images of people, churches, residencies, street scenes and businesses. |
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 Robertson and Fresh Photographs |
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| Dates: 1930s - 1960s Description: The Robertson and Fresh commercial photographic firm was active in Tampa from 1932 to 1960. William Vernon "Red" Robertson shot photographs while Harry Fresh processed and printed the images. The Robertson and Fresh Photographs provide a visual records of Tampa from the Depression to the prosperous post-WWII era. |
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| Morison Buck, a native
of Memphis, Tennessee, practiced law in Tampa from 1948 to 1977. He
served as a United States Commissioner, as Tampa's Assistant City
Attorney, as a Circuit Judge and, since 1991, as a Mediator for state
and federal courts. The collection includes copies of "Chips off the Old Bench" columns written by Judge Buck for the Hillsborough County Bar Association. |
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| The USF Libraries collaborated with Dr. Gary Mormino to videotape 14 segments featuring Dr. Mormino at various historical spots in Ybor City. | |
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| There are three main components of the Charles Ringling Family Collection: the Ringling mansion, archives from the Ringling Brothers Circus, and biographical materials centered on Charles Ringling family. The digitized images are a sampling of the larger collection available at the Jane Bancroft Cook Library in Sarasota. | |
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| Concentrating on the Pinellas Pasco region, professional photographer C. H. Stokes found his subjects along the route of the old Orange Belt Railway. Incorporated in 1893, the Sanford & St Petersburg Railroad took over the older railway's properties, and then became part of the Plant System in 1895 accounting for the photographs being captioned "Views along" either the Sanford & St Petersburg or Plant System of Railways. Both railway companies used the photographs to promote tourism and development. | |
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| This collection documents the growth of St Petersburg from the 1920's to the 1960's. Photographer Francis G. Wagner [9 May 1891-2 Dec 1975], a native of Tontogany Ohio, came to St. Petersburg in the winter of 1914. He opened St Petersburg's first camera store, the Strand Camera Shop at 9 Second Street, in 1916. The Wagners sold the Strand Camera Shop to employee Charlie E. Jones in 1963. Jones closed the shop around 1980 and the space was rented to various businesses. Hired in April 1984 to clean out the storage loft, Earl R. Jacobs, III found and preserved more than one thousand negatives. | |
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 Wehman Collection of Florida Spanish American War Photographs |
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| A collection of Spanish American War photographs taken mostly in Tampa collected by the Wehman family. | |
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| Tampa WPA Office Papers | |
| The bulk of this collection consists of manuscripts and revised typescripts of the Florida edition of the American Guide Series; drafts and revisions pertain to Hillsborough County, particularly the city of Tampa, with a substantial number of essays on Ybor City and its immigration history. Correspondence and research by Stetson Kennedy, one of the project’s chief editors, is included. Also included are the correspondence and records of daily activities of Carita Doggett Corse, who served as the director of the Florida Writer’s Project in 1935. | |
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 Sape A. Zylstra Collection of Tampa Architectural Slides |
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| Dr. Sape Zylstra has constructed within this collection a glimpse of the first century of Tampa's rich architectural history. From the earliest schoolhouse built by General Jesse Carter for his daughter to a Post-Modern home constructed by notable Tampa architect Eduardo Garcia, we get a peek at the fertile divergence of cultures drawn to Tampa. |
Morison Buck Biographies of Hillsborough County Judges
Historic Ybor City Walking Tour
Charles Ringling Family Collection
Stokes Collection of Florida Plant Railway Photographs
Earl R. Jacobs III Collection of Francis G. Wagner's St. Petersburg PhotographsDescription
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