Safety Harbor Chamber of Commerce Mural

Panfilo de Narvaez

Narváez was appointed Adelantado of Florida by Charles V. He sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on June 17, 1527, with a fleet of five ships and 600 men. The expedition arrived on the west coast of Florida in April 1528, weakened by storms and desertions. He landed with 300 men near the Rio de las Palmas—at what is currently known as the Jungle Prada Site in St. Petersburg.

Hernando De Soto

Hernando de Soto (c.1496/1497—1542) was a Spanish explorer and conquistador who led the first European expedition deep into the territory of the modern-day United States, and the first documented to have crossed the Mississippi River. A vast undertaking, de Soto’s North American expedition ranged throughout the southeastern United States searching for gold, silver, and a passage to China. De Soto died in 1542 on the banks of the Mississippi River in Arkansas or Louisiana.

Tocobagan Indians

Tocobaga (also Tocopaca) was the name of a chiefdom, its chief and its principal town during the 16th century in the area of Tampa Bay. The town is believed to have been at the Safety Harbor Site. The name Tocobaga is also often applied to all of the people who lived around Tampa Bay during the first Spanish colonial period (1513-1763), but Spanish accounts name other chiefdoms around Tampa Bay.

Odet Philippe

Odet Philippe was the first permanent, non-native settler on the Pinellas County peninsula, acquiring 160 acres of land in 1842 in what is today Safety Harbor. He was a successful businessman who introduced cigar making and citrus to the Tampa Bay region. His descendents, including the McMullen and Booth families (for whom McMullen-Booth Road is named), are among the county’s most well-known pioneer clans. Philippe was buried in Philippe Park – his former plantation – in 1869 but the exact location of the gravesite is unknown.