Heres what to know, After nearly a century of fixing Tampas flat tires, downtown Firestone closes, West Tampa plumber was able to achieve a lot by being kind, Rays face Braves with Shane McClanahan on the mound today, Pinellas County education is getting dragged into a medieval inquisitors dungeon | Letters. [23][3][7] While none of these stories can be verified, researchers have found record indicating that Gmez lived in several locations around southwest Florida from about 1870 until his death, including the Florida Everglades, Key West, Tampa, Pass-a-Grille, and the Ten Thousand Islands. Most stories agree he was an aristocratic Spanish Navy Officer who later. [37] The mayor of Tampa then surrenders the key of the city to the "pirate captain", and a "victory parade" ensues down Bayshore Boulevard. Gaspar could not resist taking one last prize, so he led his crew aboard the Floriblanca to pursue their prey. Robin Sussingham was Senior Editor at WUSF until September 2020.
Gasparilla history explained, legend of Jose Gaspar | wtsp.com - KTVB "Taking the best of everything when a capture was made, he chose the best of the islands in Charlotte Harbor, for his own secret haunts," declared the leaflet. [4] Subsequent retellings of the Gaspar legend are based upon this fanciful account, including the accidental inclusion of Jos Gaspar in a 1923 book on real pirates that has caused ongoing confusion about his historical authenticity.[5].
Gasparilla: Is It Just Like Mardi Gras? | OLLI Connects [3][7][5][18], In 1949, a retired Pat Lemoyne gave a history lecture at a Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce function in which he cheerfully admitted that his biography of Jos Gaspar was a "cockeyed lie without a true fact in it" and that he had written the brochure in a dramatic style that "tourists like to hear". The parade has always been held along Tampa's waterfront near downtown Tampa, and since 2011, it has ended along the Tampa Riverwalk, where festivities continue into the nighttime hours.[4][1]. For decades, many members of YMKG walked the parade route armed with six-shooters or other handguns loaded with blanks which they frequently fired in the air. Though there were plenty of boats in Tampas bustling port, pirates needed to find ships that were empty, which was difficult. Nashville to Tampa: Hey, nice Riverwalk you got there.
Gasparilla Festival of the Arts returns to Tampa. Here's what to know Gasparilla 2023: Schedule, Parking, Upgraded Seats + MORE! [3], The parade is organized by Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla (YMKG), a local organization modeled after the "krewes" of Mardi Gras in New Orleans who play the parts of Gaspar and his crew. Events kick-off at 9 am and continue through 10 pm. 9400 Little Gasparilla Is Unit E2 is located in Placida, the 33946 zipcode, and the Charlotte. 9400 Little Gasparilla Is Unit E2 is a 946 square foot property with 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms. At least a portion of the Gasparilla Parade of Pirates has traversed Bayshore Boulevard into downtown almost since its inception. [52] The city and the National Football League put pressure on the Krewe of Gasparilla to admit African-American members before the event, but the organization refused and cancelled Gasparilla instead. "Pirate State (of mind); When bad boys make for good fun: Pirates have shed their villainous image in Florida". [7][3], Other versions of the story state that Gaspar was a nobleman who achieved a high rank in the Spanish Royal Navy and became a councilor to King Charles III of Spain. The Tampa Bay area's annual pirate festival, Gasparilla, first began in 1904 when the Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla (YMKG) planned a surprise "mock pirate attack" on Tampa. The acclaimed art festival that draws award-winning artists from throughout the country is happening March 4-5 at Julian B.
Travel through time with our '100 doubloons' of Gasparilla in Tampa Bay Situated along Garrison Channel in downtown Tampa, Sparkman Wharf (615 Channelside Dr, Tampa, FL 33602) is Tampa's new outdoor waterfront destination. However, while pirates on foot are no longer allowed to use firearms during the parade, trained members of YMKG still fire loud mini-canons from several specialized floats and during the cross-bay voyage of the Jose Gasparilla II.[22]. [18][5] However, amateur gold seekers have repeatedly disrupted nearby archeological sites, often in violation of Florida law. The annual Gasparilla celebration is one of Tampa Bay's biggest social events, . The brochure was produced and widely distributed by the Charlotte Harbor and Northern Railway, which built the resort at the end of its rail line.
Gasparilla parade will have four generations of one family this year Reporters and bloggers, alike, Can the Democratic Party regain strength in Florida? A look ahead at the legislative session, Barbara Bryant, the first woman to head the U.S. census, has died at 96, Scientists find signs of horse riding in ancient human remains, A man dies of a brain-eating amoeba, possibly from rinsing his sinuses with tap water, Garland supports effort to hold Russia accountable for war crimes. [3][2], There is also no physical evidence to support Gaspar's existence.
Gasparilla Pirate Festival - Wikipedia He explained that the story had been inspired by John Gmez's tall tales, which Lemoyne had heard second-hand. Floats need to be in place on Bayshore Boulevard early Saturday morning for the Parade of Pirates to start at 2 p.m. Barnes said this years parade will have 114 floats. Burnt Store Marina apartments for rent. [22] His self-reported age and birthplace varied, even on official documents. World War II froze Gasparilla from 1941-47, diverting funds to buy war bonds, and leaving 33rd king and queen, James T. Swann Jr. and Queen Ruth Binnicker, on the throne, the only royals to marry . More than a century. As the planning has become more complicated over the years, however, the parade has accepted corporate sponsorships to defray costs and hired EventFest to coordinate the event with the city. Chapman serves as the King for Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla this year. Part of the weekend programming includes the Emerging Artists Program, which provides . Gasparilla is one day out of the year, you celebrate the tradition, but really 364 days out of the year youre here working, being part of Tampa, you live here, you worship here, you support all of the organizations here, you try to make this a great place, said Chapman. What are those large pyramids next to the Skyway? [46] The second Gasparilla the following year was not a surprise, as every automobile owner in town was invited to join the mounted pirates in the parade. The 94-year-old was King of Gasparilla during the Truman Administration when the parade route weaved through downtown Tampa and not down Bayshore. However, no evidence has been found to support this claim. The pirate ship needs to be moved into place to begin the invasion at 11:30 a.m. Tugboats help move the ship, which leads a flotilla of over 1500 smaller boats. The disappearance of a Tampa Bay blue blood rattles the skeletons in his family's closet. The fast-food . 'Ted' DeLaVergne & Queen Emala Parkhill, King Lemuel P. Woods & Queen Elizabeth Dawson, King Gordon L. Gibbons & Queen Lucile Trice, King James E. Wall Jr. & Queen Phyllis Turner, King W. Frank Hobbs & Queen Sylvia Corral, King G. Richard Griffin & Queen Louise Lykes, King Henry Weidman & Queen Sara B. Johnson, King David A. Falk & Queen Mary Frances Swann, King LeBron Kinchley & Queen Peggy Van Dyke, King James T. Swann Jr. & Queen Ruth Binnicker, King H. Phillip Hampton & Queen Mary Ellen Cook, King William C. McElmurray & Queen Lucy Ann Forgy, King W. Howard Frankland & Queen Mary Julia Dupree, King Charles G. Baskerville & Queen Shirley McKay, King Gilvie L. Reeves & Queen Patricia Lowry, King Carlton C. Cone & Queen Suzanne Lowry, King John A. Research in Spanish archives has turned up no mention of his early life, his presence in the Spanish royal court, or his career in the Spanish navy. On Saturday, pirates will once again storm downtown Tampa during the annual Gasparilla invasion. Taking inspiration from Mardi Gras krewes, there was a hierarchy in place with a king and queen of Gasparilla crowned each year and debutante balls for young women. A note on the following images: While the krewes of the 21st century are more inclusive, Gasparilla was segregated by gender until the 1960s and by race until the 1990s. [49], The Parade of Pirates has been held every year since 1947 with two exceptions: in 1991, when a controversy over inclusion saw Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla refuse to participate, and in 2021, when the parades and most related events were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He was popular in the court, but when he spurned one lover for another, the jilted lady levied false charges against him, often said to involve the theft of the crown jewels. [3], Gmez's uncertain birth was said to be just the beginning of an exceedingly long and adventure-filled life. [18] Since 2011, the parade route has ended at Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park along the Tampa Riverwalk, where festivities continue into the evening. The legend states that Gaspar terrorized the western coastal waters of Florida in the late 18th to early 19th century.
WFLA | What is Gasparilla? [59], When Tampa next hosted a Super Bowl in 2001, the parade was held on the Saturday before the game, and an integrated Krewe of Gasparilla was joined by over 30 other diverse krewes before a record crowd of 750,000. But Westcott, who has never missed a Queen's Party, fails to attend his own coronation . "Pirates" with Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla really embrace their roles in the 1954 invasion.
2023 Gasparilla Parade Information | City of Tampa [3], In the 1930s, construction worker Ernesto Lopez showed his family a mysterious box he claimed to have found while working with a repair crew on the Cass Street Bridge in downtown Tampa. Over time, the formerly one-day event evolved into a "Gasparilla season" which runs approximately from the beginning of the year until mid-March. [36], A wide variety of local businesses, organzations, and smaller events ranging from restaurants to beauty pageants to classic car shows and food festivals also use the names "Gaspar" or "Gasparilla"; according to the Florida Department of State, over 100 entities have registered related names.
in the manner of the buccaneers! [1] Finally, it claimed that a burial mound "forty feet high and four hundred feet in circumference" near Gasparilla Island had been found to contain "ornaments of gold and silver" along with "hundreds of human skeletons", but that the bulk of the buccaneer's vast cache of buried treasure "still lies unmoved" nearby, in the vicinity of the Gasparilla Inn. The Children's Parade was first held in 1947 and has grown over the years, usually drawing about 100,000 attendees. The "Gasparilla Festival" became a stand-alone event in 1913, and with exception of hiatuses during the world wars and on two other occasions, it has been celebrated every year since. Gasparilla Island is a barrier island just north of the mouth of Charlotte Harbor that is almost 7 miles (11km) long and less than 1 mile (1.6km) across at its widest point. As of the 2020 edition of the Gasparilla Pirate Fest, the issue was being considered by the United States Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. [9][10][11] The "pirate ship" fires a near-continuous barrage of loud mini-canons during its journey between Davis Island and Harbour Island accompanied by hundreds of smaller private boats. The History of Gasparilla Legend has it that a Spanish pirate named Jos Gaspar terrorized his way up and down the west coast of Florida in the late 18th and 19th centuries. [3], Similarly, Sanibel Island is said to have been named by Gaspar's first mate, Rodrigo Lopez, after his lover whom he had left back in Spain. "[44] Among its many inaccuracies, the brochure stated that pirate's nickname "Gasparilla" means "Gaspar the outlaw" in Spanish when it is actually a form meaning "little Gaspar", that Gasparilla Island was named for the pirate when the name actually appears on Spanish and English maps from well before his supposed arrival, and that the "bleached bones" of Gaspar's victims along with many old coins had been discovered in local "Indian mounds" when no such find has ever been documented. This document recounts the Gasparilla legend first published in 1936 but adds a coda which concedes that scholarly research conducted in both Spanish and American archives has not uncovered any evidence of Gaspar's existence. [3][1], Though the brochure presents its "romantic" history of Gaspar as well-established truth, it is entirely fictional. Some guys will be walking with their grandfathers in this parade and certainly their fathers, Chapman said. Hundreds of thousands will crowd the streets to participate in another day of bead-throwing and. [11] The sails are merely decorative and the "pirate ship" has no engine, so on Gasparilla Day, it is guided through the flotilla of accompanying smaller vessels by three tugboats helmed by experienced harbor pilots.
4 generations of pirates take part in this year's Gasparilla parade Hundreds of thousands will crowd the streets to participate in another day of bead-throwing and debauchery. [3][15][5][2] Despite claims that he was the most feared pirate in the Gulf of Mexico for several decades, searches of contemporary American newspapers have found no mention of the name "Gaspar" or "Gasparilla" or of a pirate ship called Floriblanca, and searches of U.S. Navy archives have found no mention of Gaspar in ships' logs or in official court records of the hundreds of piracy trials held during the era. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. This week on Florida Matters, we take a deep dive into the past and present of Gasparilla. For men, getting the chance to don a pirate costume and join the invasion could be a very . [7][3], In still other versions, Gaspar was a brilliant Spanish admiral of questionable character who actually succeeded in stealing the crown jewels. Here's who does", "Tourism boosters hope Gasparilla 'season' lures more travelers to Tampa Bay", "Tampa's Old Guard Wary of Diluting Gasparilla", "Is Gasparilla's treasure real? [24] In 1885, he told state census takers that he had been born in Corsica,[25] and reported to the 1900 US Census that he was born in Portugal in 1776. [16], The Krewe of Gasparilla was Tampa's only Gasparilla krewe until the woman-only Krewe of Venus was organized in 1966, the Ybor City-based Krewe of the Knights of Sant'Yago was organized in 1972, the Tampa Rough Riders were organized in 1978, and many more were established after YMKG opened up participation in the parade to more krewes in the 1990s. The period in which he was supposedly active was well after the "Golden Age of Piracy" (c. 1650 - 1725), when real historical figures such as Bartholomew Roberts, Blackbeard, and William Kidd operated in and around the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic basin. He claimed to have seen Napoleon as a youth in France (or, alternatively, was drafted into Napoleon's army), sailed the world as a cabin boy on a merchant ship, served as a scout for the U.S. Army during the Seminole Wars, served as a coastal pilot for the U.S. Navy during the Civil War, was involved in filibustering (and perhaps pirating) in Central America and the Caribbean, and escaped a Cuban prison just before his scheduled execution, among other remarkable exploits spread out over the entirety of the 19th century. The Gasparilla parade in 1910 was the last year the invasion was done on horseback. Most agree that Gaspar was born in Spain about 1756, served in the Spanish Navy until turning to piracy about 1783, and met his end in southwest Florida during a battle against the United States Navy in late 1821. Gasparilla began in 1904 when Miss Louise Francis Dodge, society editor of the Tampa Tribune, and George W. Hardee, then with the federal government in Tampa, conspired to promote the City of Tampa and its May Day celebration. Also, they saw pretty early on that this could be a neat attraction and a neat tourist draw to a city that didnt really have much of a tourist industry aside from the Tampa Bay Hotel and the fact that the railroad did come here. So, let's get to it! In 2004, YMKG published a new centennial history of the organization. For most of the 20th century, Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla, the only organization hosting the parade, was very exclusive.
[ IVY. Letsgetstarted. The award-winning Raymond James Gasparilla Festival of the Arts returns for its 53rd year on March 4th and 5th. [17][18], Parade participants on floats and on foot have traditionally tossed souvenirs as they make their way along the route, but the specific items have changed over time. King CVII James A. Turner III & Queen CVII Martha Davis Straske 2022. 'Milo' Vega & Queen Shirley Morgan, King Ed K. Nelson Jr. & Queen Mary Louise Lee, King James L. Ferman & Queen Pamela Logan, King Blackburn W. Lowry & Queen Betsy Allison, King Fred S. Johnston & Queen Stella Louise Ferguson, King H. Grady Lester Jr. & Queen Lavinia Lee Witt, King Richard S. McKay & Queen Bonnie Grace Hall, King J.H. [7][3][9], Different versions of Gaspar's legend relate different episodes in his piratical career. Though there is no evidence he actually existed, Gaspar was adopted patron rogue of this new Tampa celebration. Don Barnes, Executive Officer of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla said a lot has changed since then.