Happy 100th Birthday Seminole Heights!

The Greater Seminole Heights Neighborhood turns 100 this year. On Sept. 17, residents will come together to celebrate the milestone at the .

“Every single civic organization in Seminole Heights is a part of this,” said Evan St. Ives, president of the Old Seminole Heights Neighborhood Association. “We're going to have all kinds of activities for adults and children.”

St. Ives said that Seminole Heights is a unique neighborhood that deserves to be celebrated.

“In this neighborhood, you know who your neighbors are and there's always someone willing to help you. People call you by name. They know who you are,” he said. “That's called community.”

The neighborhood and civic associations will host a free party at the Center from noon until 4 p.m. The first 100 guests will receive a free hat. The celebration will feature children's games, face painting, and free birthday cake.

Volunteers from the library will tell stories to the children.  “They [will] tell stories the old-fashioned way — from memory," St. Ives said.

Families will also have a chance to meet members of the Tampa Police Department's canine unit and enjoy “a talking police car that the kids can get in and play around in,” he said.

In addition, staff from the neighborhood's famed and popular will be on hand to sell good eats.

In honor of the neighborhood's centennial, here's a look back at Seminole Heights' beginnings:

Tampa at the turn of the last century was a busy metropolis of 26,000 people, about the population of the Seminole Heights neighborhood today. Cigar factories, shipping and citrus farming were contributing to the city's growth.

The Seminole Heights neighborhood began as farmland on the outskirts of Tampa, with citrus groves, cattle ranches, and homesteaders. The area was too distant from Tampa for most city dwellers to venture there.

William Parker Jackson, known as “Captain Bill,” was one of the early homesteaders in the Seminole Heights area, farming 160 acres, west of Nebraska Avenue to the Hillsborough River. The Jackson home, which dates to the 19th century, still stands today, at 800 Lambright St.

In the early 20th century, the town of Sulphur Springs was being developed as a resort area. Bath houses and tourist cottages sprung up, and the Sulphur Springs Pool was developed.

In 1911, the Tampa Electric Company took over a trolley line connecting Tampa to Sulphur Springs. Developer T. Roy Young saw the potential for the area in between, and bought up 40 acres. Other developers soon followed. This is the land that would become Seminole Heights.

Seminole Heights experienced a construction boom over the next two decades, when many of the neighborhood's bungalow-style houses were built. The new residents were mainly working-class Tampa residents, happy to have a suburban home close to the streetcar line.

In 1927, the grand Sulphur Springs Hotel and Arcade was erected, along with the water tower to provide the area with artesian well water. The resort took up a whole city block, at the southwest corner of Nebraska Avenue and Bird Street. This was Florida's first indoor shopping mall.

This period also saw a Gothic Revival movement in neighborhood architecture with the Seminole Heights United Methodist Church and Hillsborough High School being built.

Today, 100 years after Seminole Heights was born, a neighborhood revival is well underway. In recent years, the area has seen a burgeoning culinary scene, restored storefronts, sidewalk installations, construction of community centers, park improvements and volunteer-led efforts to repair and restore aging homes.

"Seminole Heights is growing up in many ways!" said Sherry Genovar-Simons, president of the Southeast Seminole Heights Civic Association. "This Saturday we not only celebrate the birthday of a place many of us love and adore, but it is also the very first time every neighborhood association and community related non profit have come together to sponsor a single event. It is a very appropriate way to celebrate a 100th birthday and hopefully the community spirit that brought everyone together will continue on through the next 100 years!"