About the Cover . . .

Picture this: It's 1890-something and you're a wealthy Northern businessman looking for investment opportunities. The newspaper ads for land in Oregon sound tempting. But Oregon is a whole continent away with a whole lot of wild, wild west in between.

Then you meet a man who tells you about a tropical paradise where fruits and vegetables grow in winter and land is cheap. He mentions Florida, and you think swamps, jungle, and wilderness.

No! he tells you. Luxurious waterfront accommodations furnished ala the finest European hotels. Fish or play golf all day, while the missus plays croquet or or strolls through tropical gardens; then dress to the nines and enjoy a formal, ten-course meal followed by waltzing in the ballroom.

Of course, he adds, there is quite a bit of reasonably priced land in the area just waiting for someone to develop it.

So you pack up your family right after the next Christmas, board the train, and head South. And south, and south to Jacksonville, then southwest through pines and palmettos and what looks a lot like wilderness to you.

Just about the time the missus accuses you of bringing them to the middle of nowhere, you catch sight of an onion-shaped silver dome topped with a spire rising above the oaks in the distance. Then another . . . and another. Your jaw drops as Henry Bradley Plant's palatial Tampa Bay Hotel comes into view.

Never mind that the population of Tampa, with its dirt roads and rough reputation, is maybe 1,000 people. Your world for the next month or so is contained within the 150-acre grounds and the 500+ room building that stretches for a quarter mile along the Hillsborough River.

Henry Bradley Plant revolutionized the railway system by standardizing rail gauge, then created a vast southern network of railroads, luxury hotels, and steamship routes. Plant, perhaps more than any other single person, positioned Tampa to grow from backwater Army post to major metropolitan area. Today, the Tampa Bay Hotel is home to the University of Tampa and the Henry B. Plant Museum. Read more about Plant and his Tampa Bay Hotel on p. 41 and p. 60. Photo courtesy of the University of Tampa.