Since 1906, people have gathered on January 6 at Spring Bayou in Tarpon Springs to watch young men compete to find a submerged wooden cross. Today, thousands of people attend the ceremony. The unique Epiphany celebration is an example of Greek culture still prevalent in Tarpon Springs.
In the town of Tarpon Springs, you can listen to Greek music played on a bouzouki, try baklava pastry, savor a lamb stew or Greek seafood dish, sip an alcoholic ouzo licorice drink, and enjoy many other aspects of Greek tradition. culture.
You can see the neo-Byzantine style architecture of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and watch sponge divers unload their catch on the downtown quay.
Tarpon Springs has the largest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the United States.
“Even today, after four or five generations of people, there is still a large portion of the population that speaks Greek,” said Tina Bucuvalas, curator of arts and history for the city of Tarpon Springs.
When the first Greeks arrived in Tarpon Springs in 1905, a thriving town was already in place.
When Hamilton Disston purchased 4 million acres of land for 25 cents an acre in 1881, this included the land that would become Tarpon Springs. To spur development, Disston brought businessman Anton Safford to Tarpon Springs.
The Victorian house in which Safford lived can be visited today. The Safford House Museum features period furniture and original family heirlooms that showcase the house as it was in 1883.
The Orange Belt Railway came to the town in 1887. The railway depot is now a museum.
Florida Frontiers: History Behind the Coral Gables Community Project
“The building we’re in was built in 1909 because the original train station burned in 1908. It was restored in 2005,” said Sharon Sawyer of the Tarpon Springs Area Historical Society.
“The railway was brought here by Peter Demens. He brought the railroad from Sanford to Tarpon Springs and then on to St. Petersburg. Before the railroad came, everyone had to get here by boat or wagon, so the railroad in 1887 made a big difference here in town.
It was the sponge industry that really put Tarpon Springs on the map.
In the mid-1800s, the sponge industry was thriving in the Florida Keys, but by the early 1900s, Tarpon Springs was the largest sponge port in the United States.
While sponges in the Keys were harvested with long poles, in Tarpon Springs Greek sponge divers wore canvas wetsuits with round metal helmets.
“John Cocoris realized that the way sponges were harvested in Greece would yield far more than the phishing methods used in Florida,” Tina Bucuvalas said.
“They brought Greeks. Initially, 500 boats arrived in 1905, then a few years later there were 1,500, and there were a lot of boats. This quickly made Tarpon Springs the sponge capital of the world. Tarpon Springs was a large and important town at a time when St. Petersburg was just a big space on the road.
With the massive influx of Greek sponge divers and their families into Tarpon Springs, businesses and institutions to serve them were created, including restaurants, grocery stores, bakeries, and cafes.
Florida Borders: Current Islands Lecture Cruise
Today, Tarpon Springs retains a distinctive European flavor.
“They get up in the morning and eat Greek food, and clean their yards which are home to various plants that you might see in Greece,” Bucuvalas said. “They will have their coffee outside. Old ladies wearing headscarves will go to the Saint-Michel chapel, to Saint-Nicolas or to the bakery.”
St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was built in 1907 and expanded in 1943 with marble imported from Greece.
The unique Epiphany celebration that takes place every January 6 attracts people from all over the world. After a church ceremony, the congregation walks to the Spring Bayou dock, where a wooden cross is thrown into the water. The young man who collects the cross is believed to bring special blessings to his family for the year.
The Patriarch of Constantinople, the Greek Orthodox equivalent of Catholicism’s pope, came to Tarpon Springs in 2006 for the 100th anniversary of the city’s Epiphany ceremony.
Dr. Ben Brotemarkle is executive director of the Florida Historical Society. He is also the host of the weekly public radio show “Florida Frontiers,” broadcast locally on 90.7 WMFE and 89.5 WFIT. The public television series “Florida Frontiers” can be seen locally on WUCF-TV. More information at www.myfloridahistory.org.