Every student attending the University of Tampa pulls up for the first time and is awed by the beautiful scructure known as Plant Hall. The intrigue often stops there and Plant Hall is then seen as just another academic building.The intricate statues and decor that adorn the first floor are passed by without a second thought and the same floors where Babe Ruth and Teddy Roosevelt once walked are unknowingly tread upon on by busy students and faculty. A great deal of history has been well preserved within the walls of the Tampa Bay Hotel, and it’s about time it was recognized for it.
It all started with a man named Henry B. Plant, a railroad tycoon with a ton of money and a vision. He dreamed of building a hotel that even Jay Gatsby would be in awe of. Investors were weary of the sheer magnitude of his proposition, so he decided to build it himself. Costing about $2.5 million to construct and $500,000 to furnish, even in 1891, the Tampa Bay Hotel was the definition of luxury. It even contained the first elevator in the history of Florida, which is still there today. Numerous celebrities visited the hotel, including Teddy Roosevelt and his team of Rough Riders during the Spanish-American War. Others include the Red Cross humanitarian Clara Barton and the great American writer Stephen Crane. In fact, Babe Ruth signed his first baseball contract right in the Grand Dining Room and hit his longest home run in Plant Field. Yet, the mass extravagance that was the Tampa Bay Hotel didn’t last long as visitors were declining at a fast rate. Eventually, the hotel was unable to survive in a world where such decadence was no longer desired.
A common misconception of modern universities is that they have always been as large and productive as they are in the present time. UT has a much humbler beginning, and its success can almost single handedly be contributed to the Tampa Bay Hotel. At its start, UT was a junior college run by Fredric Spaulding in 1931. The college was expanding at a rapid pace, and pretty soon Spaulding was looking for a bigger building to house his students. Back then, the Tampa Bay Hotel was defunct and run down, but the many rooms that were still intact gave Spaulding the idea to purchase. The junior college became a four-year university, and the University of Tampa was established. Ever since, the relationship between Plant Hall and UT has been a mutual partnership: students continue to roam the the halls to attend class, and a national historic landmark is forever preserved.
Now to address the impressive-looking cannon in front of the building. This gun in particular does memorialize Tampa’s role in the 1898 Spanish American War and points toward Cuba. However, this is not the original cannon. Like the engraved plaque indicates on the gun’s mantle, the original cannon was taken from Fort Dade, an old coast defense fort on Egmont Key. Once an embarkation point for Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, the fort served as a quarantine camp during the Spanish American War and was later used as a training camp in WWI. While it is in fact true that the original Fort Dade gun was placed in Plant Park in November 1927, it was donated for steel scrap during WWII. Following the war, the city of Tampa missed the symbolic cannon so much, they replaced it with a similar gun from Fort Morgan, Ala.
Little known to many Tampa students, there is another fort that Plant Park commemorates. Facing the Hillsborough River slightly near the campus library is another cannon, but this one is the real deal. This cannon came from the most important military station in the history of Tampa: the actual fort that helped protect the city. Once called Fort Brooke, this military outpost survived all three Seminole Indian Wars as well as the Civil War. Particularly during the Civil War, the fort was taken under siege by the Union Army where the cannon was disabled, with damage still apparent on the gun today. Shortly after it was decommissioned, Fort Brooke became an independent town and was eventually annexed by the nearby village of Tampa, jumpstarting the city we know today. Unfortunately, due to mass industrialization, all that remains of this military outpost is the cannon. Henry B. Plant thought that this monumental piece of Tampa’s history should be preserved and displayed for all to appreciate amd so the cannon still stands ever since the hotel’s opening in 1891. Today what some may call an eyesore is actually a valuable part of both Plant Hall and the city of Tampa.
Lauren Richey can be reached at lauren.richey@theminaretonline.com