hood hype: limona, fl

There are lots of great places around here, but Tampa Bay is spread out pretty wide.  This is our attempt to briefly shine the spotlight on some of the area’s neighborhoods.  If you think your community is interesting, let us know about it, and we’ll give your place a bit of ‘hood hype.

Just around the corner from the craziness of Brandon traffic, Limona sits about eleven miles east of downtown Tampa, just north of Brandon Blvd (Hwy 60) in unincorporated Hillsborough County.  Its boundaries were east of Interstate 75, west of Parsons Avenue, north of SR 60 and south of Windhorst Road.

Limona is a bit of an oasis, with huge old oak trees, scrub and still a couple parcels of land undeveloped.  There are a couple of lakes, too, including Ten Mile Lake (just off of 60, it is ten miles from the old courthouse in Tampa), Gornto Lake, and Chapman Lake.  In 1990,there were 5,350 residents who lived in 2,220 homes within Limona’s 2.21 square miles.  Home prices range from about $100,000 to around $500,000.

With the growth of Brandon, Limona got swallowed up.  Although population in the area grew tremendously, Limona’s identity is all but gone.  The Brandon Lions Club was chartered in 1954, and uses the old Limona Home Improvement Association building (photo circa 2005).  The post office closed in 1964, when residents were served by Brandon.

But the Limona name does live on in a few instances.  Limona Road runs from Hwy 60 to Lakewood Dr., where it turns into Woodberry.  Limona Elementary opened in 1972.  In 1982, the Limona Village Chapel United Methodist Church agreed to care for the Limona Cemetery, and a historical marker for the Village of Limona was erected there in 1989.

Limona Park (1316 Lakewood Drive) is known as home to the first public disc golf course in Hillsborough County. The 9-hole par 27 course is placed among the rolling hills and giant oak trees in the 10-acre park.

Geneaologists may want to take a closer look at the Limona Cemetery (also see some Limona obituaries), and a historical marker for the Village of Limona was erected there in 1989.

Complete history after the jump:

From Madison, Wisconsin, Judge Joseph Gillette Knapp arrived in Tampa on January 6, 1876.  He met a man at the Orange Grove Hotel (now the site of our downtown county courthouses) who “extolled the virtues of an area east of Tampa.”

Knapp staked his claim on 160 acres there, moved into an abandoned log house, and used some existing orange saplings to start a grove.  He named it Limona, Spanish word for “a place where lemons grow.”

As you might imagine, there wasn’t much else out there.  A lonesome dirt trail connected the area to other Indian trails, but that was about it.  Of course, Knapp didn’t mention that, but instead would brag about the great soil to be found, the low prices for land, healthful weather, and the serenity.

In 1877, the Elgin Watch Company (Illinois) sent E. E. Pratt south to find a retirement community for their employees.  Knapp convinced Pratt to chose Limona, and the watch company formed the Limona Park Association.  Along with several of Knapp’s family, Elgin employees came to Limona, and Knapp opened the Limona Post Office on March 19, 1878.

With all of the newcomers and the abundance of pine trees, a handful of sawmills opened, which supplied lumber for home construction.   As the land was cleared, others began farming the property.  By the 1880s, farmers grew oranges, tomatoes, cucumbers, bananas, guavas, corn, grape fruit, sugar cane, cotton, pineapples, mangos, figs, and dates, as well as raised hogs and cattle.

By September 1880, they needed a public school.  In late 1882, Judge Knapp, Dr. Pratt, J.L. Coe, George Chamberlain and G.K. Mead joined forces to form the Limona Academy Association, which opened at the corner of present-day Limona Road and Bates Avenue.

Limona’s population grew to about 400 by 1883, when the South Florida Railroad was completed, and daily train service between Tampa and Plant City began.  This rail line (about three miles north of Limona) would nearly kill Limona (as some feared), as it sparked development of other communities such as Seffner, Mango, and Cork (formerly Sydney, now Dover).  The Florida Central and Peninsula Railroad also laid tracks from Plant City to Tampa in 1890, but luckily for Limona, this line went further south, through the communities of Turkey Creek, Valrico, and Limona.

E.E. Pratt filed the town plat in 1891, with town lots and smaller business lots on both side of the tracks.  Limona was an express stop on the railroad line in 1893, when Dr. Knapp opened a general store.  The Perkins and Poore company opened a large packing house in Limona in 1893 to ship citrus and other goods.

In 1911 the community’s population was back up to about 200.  Still struggling to grow, Limona did have a few new businesses, including the Limona Stone and Cement Brick Company.  Stock and poultry breeding and orange growing were the primary pursuits of area farmers.

Residents formed the Limona Home Improvement Association, and built a home in 1928 – after the original 1916 building burnt down.  Then came the depression, Limona became but a memory.

In the 1930s Limona was “little more than a railway depot and a post office.”  Roads remained unpaved through the 1940s with no street lights, and few residences had phones.  Eventually, the railroad shut down the train depot, and as mentioned above, the Limona Post Office closed in 1964.

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Much of the information here I first learned from LIMONA – Gornto Lake, Lake Chapman – an excerpt from HILLSBOROUGH COUNTY HISTORIC RESOURCES SURVEY REPORT, prepared by Hillsborough County Planning & Growth Management, which in turn was taken from the Historic Resources Survey Report with permission given by the Hillsborough County Historic Resources Review Board on December 15, 2003.

Additional reading:

Come to my sunland: letters of Julia Daniels Moseley from the Florida frontier, 1882-1886 by Julia Daniels Moseley, Julia Winifred Moseley, Betty Powers Crislip. This collection of Julia’s letters – mainly to her husband, who made frequent business trips north, and to her close friend Eliza Slade – reveals the struggle of a cultured, urban woman adjusting to the hardship and isolation of life in pioneer Florida.  Julia Daniels Moseley lived in Limona.

The Ten Mile Lake Narrative is based on an interview with Julia [Winifred] Moseley at her home on Ten Mile Lake on February 17, 1999.  The interview provided information, which combined with survey, biological assessment, and other agency’s data illustrates the past, present, and future trends of the lake. Julia Winifred Moseley is the Granddaughter of Julia Daniels Moseley.

The Van Rensselaer C. Wisner Website – Hillsborough Co.: Limona, Florida. Research here includes the 7th Voting District (including Limona) in the 1880 census of Hillsborough County, Florida, News articles about Limona through the years, Obituaries of some Limona residents, and The Limona Academy of Arts, Letters and Sciences, 1882-1951.

Silver Creek 78250:  The Brandon Report: A Short Trip Down Memory Lane… Blogger Dave (now living in Silver Creek?) visits Limona in May 2008, and reminisces about growing up there in the late 1970’s.