Portal:Florida/Selected article/21
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Clearwater is a city located in Pinellas County, Florida, USA, nearly due west of Tampa. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 108,787; however, according to the 2005 U.S. Census Bureau's estimates, the city's population fell slightly to 108,687. It is the county seat of Pinellas County.[1] Clearwater is the smallest of the three principal cities in the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater metropolitan area, most commonly referred to as the Tampa Bay Area. The four-county area is home to roughly 2.7 million residents, making it the second largest metropolitan statistical area (MSA) in the state, and the third largest in the Southeastern United States.
Present-day Clearwater was originally the home of the Tocobaga people. Around 1835, the U.S. Army began construction of Fort Harrison as an outpost during the Seminole wars. The fort was located on a bluff overlooking Clearwater Harbor in an area known today as Harbor Oaks. University of South Florida archeologists excavated the site in 1977 after Alfred C. Wyllie discovered an underground ammunition bunker while digging a swimming pool on his estate. The area's population grew in 1842, after the Federal Armed Occupation Act of 1842 offered 160 acres to anyone who would bear arms and cultivate the land. Early settlers included the Stevens, Stevenson and McMullen families, who claimed and farmed large tracts of land. Prior to 1906, the area was known as Clear Water Harbor.
