By HAROLD VALENTINE

A weeklong celebration of the 50-year period that saw Tampa’s population explode nearly 100-fold will begin
April 5.

From 1875 to 1925 were Tampa’s “Boomtown years,” said director of Reclaiming Our Heritage Devin Ridley-Marks, who is coordinating the second annual Florida Heritage Celebration in Tampa. The event takes place during the last week of a statewide recognition of Florida heritage.

This year’s theme is similar to Marks’ focus for last year’s event, celebrating citrus, cigars, cattle and the other industries that put Tampa on the map.
“That’s where we got the theme for our festival ‘From Cracker to Flapper,’” Marks said. “In that period there are a myriad of stories that are full of boom, spice, vinegar, failure and success.”

Reclaiming Our Heritage is a nonprofit organization celebrating Tampa Bay’s history through events and by searching for, preserving and sharing surviving articles from Southern Florida’s first daily newspaper, the Tampa Daily Times, which evolved into the Tampa Tribune. Publications from the paper’s first 20 years – vital years chronicling Tampa’s growth – are largely missing. 

One of the events Marks is excited about could include cattle herded onto Franklin Street in front of the Tampa Theatre. The hubbub of hoofs would be for a Tampa Theatre event about Carlton Ward Jr., whose photography captures Florida’s rich ranch and cattle heritage. 

“Carlton’s photography is bringing to life the overlooked, exotic story that’s right underneath Mickey Mouse’s ears,” Marks said. “The story of ranching and cattle dates back to our earliest days as a community.”

Marks said the cattle for the $12 event, which takes place April 10 from 6 to 9 p.m., is still yet to be confirmed.

Marks said the Tampa Bay area has several crevices in it filled with history. As well as having successful industries in phosphate and lumber, which will be focused on April 11 from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Pioneer Florida Museum of Dade City, a film star from St. Petersburg was discovered during Tampa Bay’s first boom period. Marks said Colleen Moore was the Marilyn Monroe of her time, from 1915 and throughout the 1920s.

Those are the kind of factoids that get Marks excited about the area’s history, but he is not originally from Tampa Bay. He has lived in Tampa – South Tampa – for only a year and a half.

About four years ago Marks said he was running a successful marketing business in Washington D.C. That’s when he said he learned from his grandmother about his rich family history in Tampa. He found out about his great-great-grandfather, Silas Armistead Jones, who had created the Tampa Daily Times.
Marks said that’s when he realized – while his grandmother spoke about Jones – that unless history is recorded, it will be forgotten.

“We’re a culture, community and generation that is geared around instant gratification, instant messaging and instant online relationships,” Marks said. “But in this disposable culture and mentality, there are incredible depths of stories, lessons, mentors and role models of our past that can guide us through our fast-paced lifestyle that’s wounding to our soul.”

Another event celebrating heritage week also touches Marks’ personal life. On April 9 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. there will be a parlor discussion at the historic Peter O. Knight house, 245 South Hyde Park Ave. The event is hosted in part by the Byrd Alzheimer’s Research Institute and will discuss ways a community can know more about its architectural landscape.

Marks, whose mother is in the beginning stages of Alzheimer’s, said the subject can be a starting point for conversations for family members with the disease.

Marks said this technique can not only help patients with Alzheimer’s disease but can jump-start the oral tradition within families that have largely been abandoned.

Marks said to know history, particularly of one’s community, is important to residents to better understand who and where they are. 

“Unless you have a sense of the place and heritage that you call home,” Marks said, “you’re a stranger in your town.”

For information about the event, visit www.reclaimingourheritage.org.