Wimauma was a city like Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace?
By PENNY FLETCHER
Having only moved to South County in January 1980, I don’t remember the City of Wimauma, but I do remember when the old “city” charter was discovered and the scuttlebutt that surrounded that find!
Looking at the three municipalities in Hillsborough County now, Tampa, Plant City and Temple Terrace, it’s hard to believe the “little village” of Wimauma was once one of the most thriving areas of what is now referred to as South County.
Just east of Sun City Center, Wimauma has a rather small business area, and is known mostly as a rural community. Except for when the national headquarters of the Church of God holds its annual summer conference there, it’s a pretty quiet place.
Once, however, Wimauma was one of four cities in Hillsborough County. Old-timers have told me it was one of the busiest places of commerce.
Thirty-or-so years ago, I was told many stories by those who grew up in that area but no longer remember where to find those files.
Historical records, however, back up everything I was told.
According to the Tampa-Hillsborough County Library System, Wimauma was founded in 1902 by Captain C.H. Davis, who named it by using the first letters of his three daughters, Wilma, Maude and Mary. His purpose in founding the town in that particular spot was because it was the halfway point between Turkey Creek (another once-bustling place we don’t hear much about these days) and Bradenton. This added a northern addition to an existing railroad route between Durant and Sarasota. The route became the Florida West Shore Railway after having several other names and on which much of the lumber from the sawmill in Wimauma was transported.
Years ago, I interviewed children of the first settlers – then in their 70s and 80s – who said they remembered bathing and washing their clothes in Lake Tiger; now called Lake Wimauma.
I (personally) remember when the original railroad tracks were removed in 1984 and that the train station and sawmill that had once been the hub of the “city” had already been removed.
But what I remember most about Wimauma’s history was what our county commissioner Pam Iorio (who after that went on to become a two-term mayor of Tampa, and Supervisor of Elections) found while looking through old county records during her time on maternity leave around 1993.
It was a charter for the City of Wimauma, dated 1925.
At that time, South County had not had the attention and/or development the rest of Hillsborough had seen, and several groups discussed using the charter to prove the town was still a municipality and “annexing” other South County areas to it. The intention was to draw the same amount of attention to South County as the cities got.
Not knowing of the many developments planned and how South County would later develop into its own force, several groups tried to reactivate the charter making Wimauma a “city” again, but it was eventually decided by state government that since the Wimauma administration had not done business as a “city” since sometime in the mid-1930s, the charter was no longer valid.
Driving through that area the other day turning from S.R. 674 onto C.R. 579 and seeing brand new Fire Station No. 22 on that corner, I couldn’t help but wonder if the descendants of Wimauma’s founders were smiling that their small community was again receiving the attention the vast and beautiful surrounding woods and fields deserve.
Perhaps some who grew up out that way could e-mail me their thoughts about their experiences for use in a future column. E-mail penny@observernews.net.