Henry B. Plant Museum

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Tampa Bay Hotel
(U.S. National Historic Landmark)

Location:	Tampa, Florida United States
Built/Founded:	1888-1891^[1]
Architect:	J. A. Wood^[2]
Architectural style(s):	Moorish Revival^[1]
Designated as NHL:	May 11, 1976^[3]
Added to NRHP:	December 5, 1972
NRHP Reference#:	72000322^[2]
Governing body:	University of Tampa

The Henry B. Plant Museum is located in the south wing of Plant Hall (formerly the Tampa Bay Hotel) on the University of Tampa’s campus, at 401 West Kennedy Boulevard. The museum focuses on the turn of the century Victorian lifestyle of the old Tampa Bay Hotel’s guests. Highlighting the Gilded Age and the beginnings of Florida’s and Tampa’s tourist industry, the museum is open to the public every day except Monday and major Holidays. During the Christmas holiday season the museum host the annual Victorian Christmas Stroll.

The entire building (under the title of Tampa Bay Hotel) is a U.S. National Historic Landmark, designated as such on December 5, 1972.

1 History
- 1.1 Tampa Bay Hotel
2 Plant Park and hotel grounds
3 Closing and renewal
- 3.1 Recent
4 Sources
5 External links
6 Gallery

[edit] History

Dome of Plant Hall's Fletcher Room.

[edit] Tampa Bay Hotel

The Tampa Bay hotel was built by railroad magnate Henry B. Plant at a cost of over 2.5 million dollars.^[4] It was considered the premier hotel of the eight that Mr. Plant built to anchor his rail line. The Hotel itself covers six acres and is a quarter-mile long. It was equipped with the first elevator ever installed in Florida. The elevator is still in use today making it one of the oldest continually operational elevators in the nation. The 511 rooms, some of which were actually suites consisting of between three-to-seven rooms, were the first in Florida to have electric lights and telephones. Most rooms also included private bathrooms complete with a full-size tub. The price for a room ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 a night, during a time when the average hotel in Tampa cost $1.25 to $2.00. The building’s poured concrete steel reinforced structure was advertised as totally fireproof. The grounds of the Hotel spanned 150 acres (0.61 km²) and included a golf course, bowling alley, racetrack, casino, and an indoor heated swimming pool. In all 21 buildings could be found on the hotel's campus. The Moorish Revival Architectural theme was selected by Mr. Plant because of its exotic appeal to the widely traveled Victorians that would be his primary customers. The hotel has six minarets, four cupolas, and three domes, which total thirteen, representing the number of months in the Islamic Calendar. In the early 90's all were restored to their original stainless steel state.

During its operational period from 1891 to 1930, the hotel housed thousands of guest and hundreds of famous celebrities of the Victorian age. When the Spanish-American War broke out, Plant convinced the United States military to use the hotel as a base of operations. The Generals and high ranking officers stayed in the rooms of the hotel and planned invasion strategies while the enlisted men camped on the hotel’s ground. Colonel Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders also were at the hotel during this time. Roosevelt stayed in one of the Hotel’s suites and during the day led his men in battle exercises on the hotel grounds. Other visitors of note during the Hotel’s operational period were Sarah Bernhardt, Clara Barton, Stephen Crane, the Prince of Wales, and the Queen of England. Babe Ruth was also a guest of the Hotel during its latter days, and signed his first baseball contract in the Hotel’s Grand Dining Room. According to local legend, he hit his longest home run ever at the old Tampa Fairgrounds stadium located on the Hotel Grounds.

[edit] Plant Park and hotel grounds

A view of Plant Park. Plant Hall is in the background and the Sticks of Fire sculpture can be seen to the left.

The Hotel had many attractions in its heyday, most located in what is now known as Plant Park. Today, as part of both the University of Tampa's campus and the museum's grounds, several places of interest can still be seen. At the entrance to the park is the "Henry Bradley Plant Memorial Fountain" commissioned by Margaret Plant in 1899 after her husband's death. The fountain title is "Transportation" and reflects Mr. Plant's system of trains and ships with carved representations of each found on the sculpture. The fountain was carved from solid stone by George G. Barnard and holds the distinction of being the oldest public art in the city of Tampa. It was completely conserved in 1995.

Facing the Hillsborough River near the University of Tampa's library are two historic cannon from Fort Brooke, the early 19th century military post (established 1824)around which Tampa developed. The two guns are model 1819 iron 24-pounder seacoast guns, and were originally part of a three-gun Confederate battery guarding Tampa Bay during the Civil War. On May 6, 1864 a Union raiding party captured Fort Brooke and, before withdrawing the next day, disabled the three heavy cannon by blowing one trunion off of each (trunions are the side projections on which cannon pivot to elevate or depress). This damage is still evident on the two Plant Park guns today.

In the 1890s Henry Plant moved two of the long-abandoned cannon from the site of the old fort to the grounds of his new Tampa Bay Hotel, placing them in a small earthwork revetment as a curiosity for the hotel's guests. Later the guns were moved to their current location and placed on plinths made of coquina blocks. The third Fort Brooke cannon was for many years a lawn decoration at 901 Bayshore Boulevard, but was donated to a World War II scrap metal drive on October 9, 1942.

There was also a small zoo located along Biology Creek, a small stream that runs down part of the park. The creek is fed from an underground spring that comes up beneath the hotel and empties a few hundred yards away in the Hillsborough River. When the hotel was in its heyday the zoo contained a bear and alligator in addition to many smaller animals and was famous for its hundreds of squirrels and small lizards which are still on campus. The bear and alligator were eventually moved up river and became the core attractions for what is now the Lowry Park Zoo. The creeks name derives from a later period in history when students from the University used its water's to conduct various biology experiments and tests.

Facing Kennedy Boulevard in Plant Park is another historic cannon, this one being an impressive turn-of-the-century coast defense gun. It memorializes the 1898 Spanish American War and symbolically points south towards Cuba. The inscription on the cannon's monumental base describes it as an eight-inch (203 mm) gun on a "disappearing carriage" taken from Fort Dade, an old coast defense fort on Egmont Key at the mouth of Tampa Bay. The true story is however a bit more complicated.

The original Fort Dade gun described on the base was emplaced in Plant Park in November of 1927, but was donated to a steel scrap drive during World War II. Following the war, an eight-inch (203 mm) cannon of similar vintage was obtained from Fort Morgan, Alabama and installed on the 1927 memorial's vacant foundation. The new gun is mounted on the top portion of a railway gun carriage dating from World War I rather than the "disappearing carriage" of the original Fort Dade cannon.

Finally a statue called "Au Coup de Fusil" or the "Hunting Party" can be found right outside the hotel, These two bronze hounds were cast in France by Maurice Denonvilliers in 1890. Originally they faced south rather than north and their rapt attention was focused on a small bronze squirrel placed in a low hanging oak limb. However the squirrel eventually was stolen and the dogs were moved to their current location. Supposedly the two dogs represent Mr. Plant's personal favorite hunting dogs and the hotel itself had kennels stocked with hunting dogs for guests use on hunting expeditions.

One of Plant Park's walking paths.

[edit] Closing and renewal

The Hotel was closed in 1930 and remained empty and unused for three years. In late 1933, the Tampa Bay Junior College was allowed to move into the hotel using the old suites as classrooms and offices. Because of the large amount of space afforded by the hotel the scope of the junior college was expanded, becoming the University of Tampa. The Tampa Municipal Museum was established by the city to preserve the hotel in its original form and co-exist with the newly established University. In 1941 the city of Tampa signed a 99 year lease with the University of Tampa for $1.00 a year. The lease excluded the southeast wing of the building to allow for the housing of the museum. In 1974 the Tampa Municipal Museum was renamed the Henry B. Plant Museum.

[edit] Recent

Today, besides serving as offices and classrooms for the University of Tampa, the entire south wing of the building is dedicated to preserving the glory days of the old Tampa Bay Hotel. Various rooms in the wing display authentic artifacts from the old hotel, many of which were purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Plant themselves on various European shopping trips. Guided tours and a self guided tour that starts with a video entitled The Tampa Bay Hotel: Florida's First Magic Kingdom, showcase a life of leisure in old Florida.