FrankHaddleton.com/St-Petersburg

St. Petersburg - the Setting for Walker's Key

My great-great grandfather, Captain Henry M. Walker, was a Tampa Bay ship pilot in the 1890s. He lived on Egmont Key with his wife, Louisa. In 1900, while Louisa was away in Massachusetts visiting relatives, Captain Walker was found dead in his room on Egmont Key. The official conclusion was that he had taken his own life, but his friends and colleagues were sure that he had been murdered. His son, Fred, who lived across the bay at Cockroach Key ("Walker's Key", in the novel), was found dead three months later under equally mysterious circumstances. His friends were sure that he, too, had been murdered.

After the tragedies, Captain Walker's widow, Louisa, built a home at 141 Second Street North, where she spent her winters until her death in 1918. The Morgan Stanley tower now covers that location.

After learning everything I could possibly learn about the lives of the Walkers at Tampa Bay, I wrote Walker's Key. It's a murder mystery based loosely on everything I learned.

Pinellas Point Subdivision Plan

If you are looking for the 1925 Pinellas Point Subdivision Plan, you will find it at the bottom of this page.

The 1908 letter conveying a check for the sales proceeds of Walker's Key

This letter is from St. Petersburg attorney Walter Robertson Howard to Alphonso L. Weekes, Clerk at Cape Cod Savings Bank in Harwich, Massachusetts, who was assisting my great-grandmother, Clarissa Walker, in the sale of Indian Hill / Cockroach Key. Note that the letter asks whether the remains of Mr. Walker (Clarissa's husband, Fred) had yet been removed from the island. Attorney Howard's office was within the A.P. Avery Real Estate Company at 163 Central Avenue. Howard became vice-president of the American State Bank when it was organized in 1910, and had served as the city attorney. He died in 1912. A. P. Avery was a central figure in the early development of commerce in St. Petersburg.

1884 deed to Henry M. Walker and a business parter

Captain Walker invested in several parcels of land around Tampa Bay, one of which was an 80-acre parcel not far from Pinellas Point, which he purchased with a business partner in 1884. I have the original deed. In the 1920s the parcel was divided into two parts, with Captain Walker's heirs getting the western half. My grandfather had a deal to sell these 40 acres in 1926 for what was then a fortune, but then the Florida real estate boom crashed. This property was eventually sold to the City of St. Petersburg in 1965 (for less actual dollars than the 1926 deal), and it is now Lake Vista Park.

1925 Subdivision Plan of "Pinellas Point Addition"

My grandparents were in St. Petersburg in February, 1926. Some subdivision plans which they were given while hunting for a house lot to purchase have found there way down through time to me. My grandparents were expecting to receive a substantial sum of money for selling Captain Walker's 40-acre parcel, but that deal fell through as the Florida real estate market crashed that year. My guess is that if the deal had worked out, they would have built a winter home for themselves.

One interesting thing about this plan is that only a portion of it was ever built out. If you look closely at the plan, you will see a dotted line representing, I believe, where the shoreline was. Everything south of that line was supposed to be filled in, according to the plan, but never was.

This is a good quality scan of the subdivision plan. You can download the image, put it on a flash drive, and take it to Staples where you can get them to print a large poster of it. I had one printed in a size of 26" x 35", and it cost about $30. It's very cool!