15 Interesting Facts About St. Petersburg, Florida
13/12/2022
2 MinRead
Facts About St. Petersburg, Florida
St. Petersburg, Florida is bordered by Tampa Bay’s three sections, Old, Middle and Lower Tampa Bay.
The locals often refer to St. Petersburg as St. Pete. St. Pete Beach formally shortened its name in 1994 after a vote by its residents. St. Petersburg is governed by a mayor and city council.
St. Petersburg was incorporated as a town on February 29, 1892, when it had a population of 300 people.
St. Petersburg was incorporated as a city in June 1903, With this transition, the downtown waterfront’s development had dredged a deeper shipping channel from 1906 to 1908 which opened St. Petersburg to larger shipping.
St. Pete is the birthplace of scheduled aviation, with the flight of the Benoist Airboat, and the birthplace of Major League Baseball Spring Training, both in 1914.
St. Petersburg receives an average of 361 days of sunshine annually, and a Guinness World Record for the most consecutive days of sunshine, 768 days between 1967 and 1969, which resulted in St. Petersburg being nicknamed “The Sunshine City.”.
St. Petersburg was co-founded by John C. Williams, formerly of Detroit, who purchased the land in 1875 and by Peter Demens, who was instrumental in bringing the terminus of the Orange Belt Railway there in 1888.
In 1914, Tony Jannus made history when he flew his commercial aircraft over Tampa Bay, making Saint Petersburg the birthplace of commercial aviation.
St. Petersburg has a total area of 137.6 square miles. 61.7 square miles of it is land, and 75.9 square miles of it is water.
St. Petersburg is served by the Pinellas County Schools district, which currently operates 5 public high schools in the city. A few of these schools include St. Petersburg High, Lakewood High, and Northeast High.
The city of St. Petersburg, Florida is currently a member of the Sister Cities International group that was created in 1956. St.Pete. has the following sister cities: Takamatsu, Kagawa, Japan; Isla Mujeres, Quintana Roo, Mexico; Saint Petersburg, Russia & Figueres, Catalonia, Spain.
According to legend, city cofounders, John Williams and Peter Demens flipped a coin to see who would get the honour of naming the city. Demens won, and thus he named the city after his native St Petersburg Russia.
The estimated population of St. Petersburg is 258,201, as of 202, making the city the fifth largest in Florida, however, compare it to St. Petersburg, Russia which has 4.991 million people.
St. Petersburg hosts the world’s largest shuffleboard club, which was established in 1923.