Seminole, Riverside, Tampa, Ybor and so forth, the UC is filled with Heights neighborhoods. But why?

 

According to the book “A Guide to Historic Tampa Florida,” the majority of early Tampa citizens resided in what we now know as downtown. (Yes, people actually did live downtown before SkyPoint!) Consequently, the city became very crowded and, worse yet, experienced a yellow fever epidemic in 1887.

 

Neither a cure nor a cause for the illness was known at that time, but what people had realized was that those who lived on higher ground seemed to be infected less frequently. (In later years, the link was shown to be that the virus-carrying mosquito tends to breed near stagnant waters.)

 

While only slightly, the land to the north is at a higher elevation. City dwellers began to flee to the area, which Thomas P. Kennedy Jr. eventually named Tampa Heights. (It was also referred to as the Highland and the Heights.) Tampa Heights was the city’s first official suburb and in 1889 became home to Tampa’s first subdivision – a four block area created by William B. Henderson, which shared the suburb’s name.

 

The success of Tampa Heights turned the Heights name into a marketing strategy. The word appealed to real estate buyers looking for a haven from downtown’s disease and overcrowding, which is why so many Heights neighborhoods popped up throughout the UC.