The Central Park Mall is on land that once held private homes and businesses, including the Park Photo Shop in the early 1930s.
PINELLAS PARK – There are many residential and commercial structures dating back to the 1920s and beyond that still exist in the city’s business district.
Once located in the area on and around Park Boulevard, generations of people helped build the original core commercial district that included a railroad station, municipal buildings, a sugar cane processing plant and even quarters for newly arrived residents who purchased land in what was then known as Pinellas Farms.
A four-mile narrow gauge railway was used to bring sugar cane from the various fields to the mill for processing.
In her book, “People and Places in Pinellas Park 1909-1942” written by city historian Jean Cromwell, about 150 pages disclose information about the city’s past.
In 1910, for example, some 53 souls arrived here from Pennsylvania and were housed in Colony Homes located in what is now approximately the 6200 block of Park Boulevard.
Many structures have histories. A block-long structure houses, among other businesses, the real estate offices of Councilman Rick Butler, whose local heritage goes back decades. The present day Bottles Pub at 5619 Park Blvd. once was a U.S. post office. Next door to it was a drug store.
A pawn shop that today is painted bright yellow once was used for boxing matches. The proceeds paid for the city’s first paved roads.
Butler himself was born in a home on Park Boulevard that is now a parking lot.
The land for Central Park Mall once was occupied by residences and businesses. In 1931 the Park Photo Shop at 6014 Park Blvd. approximately existed where Radiant Research now operates.
Next door to the present day Pinellas Park Senior Citizen Center on 59th Street is an empty lot that in 1927 housed an egg business operated by one Marguerite E. Segui.
The present-day Park Feed Store was built in 1913 and was moved two years later to its present location at 5775 Park Blvd. The building once was a bakery, a confectionery store, a church, a bar and, some old-timers say, a house of ill repute.
The city jail was located nearby, on 58th Street, and the city auditorium at 7690 59th St. was a school and city hall.
According to “People and Places in Pinellas Park 1909-1942” in 1912 James Shoecraft moved in with his mother-in-law when relatives came to visit at his own home. F.S. Borgman that same year established a poultry and vegetable farm near the original railroad station off Park Boulevard.
A merchant’s wife named Elizabeth died in 1925 when her dress caught fire.
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