Rejected! Here's a Bay area town with a name that's a runner-up -- picked after the first idea was thrown out. Plus, the bird-brained meaning behind one local city's name.
Why do they call it Wauchula?
Signs around the charming Main Street of this Hardee County hamlet celebrate Wauchula's likely meaning. The city's banners feature a tall, grey bird with brilliant orange eyes: a sandhill crane.
A hundred-year old newspaper story says to Seminole Indians, Wauchula it meant "bird-in-the-nest."
But more modern explanations focus on a specific species of big bird, with Wauchula coming from the Indian word "watula" or "sandhill crane."
An alternative aims for something perhaps more poetic -- "watula-ha-kee," which means "call of the sandhill crane."
Why do they call it Seffner?
A U.S. post office sits near what some folks say has been the center of Seffner for 150 years.
And that makes sense, because the post office is why Seffner is called Seffner.
Even the big old oaks of eastern Hillsborough County weren't born yet when a gutsy minister headed into these woods to preach to the Indians.
He was the Rev. Daniel Simmon, so this neck of the woods was called Simmon's Hammock.
Then a man from Ohio moved here and renamed it Lenna City. Why Lenna? Why not? It was his daughter's name.
There was a postal problem, though. Rodney Kite-Powell, curator of history at the Tampa Bay History Center, explains.
"The post office thought that was too close to Lemon City, which is in Dade County," Kite-Powell said.
Lenna City was rejected by the post office. Lenna's dad was not pleased, but he had a plan.
You see, he was the postmaster.
So he sent a new suggestion to headquarters. If it couldn't be Lenna City, it should be Seffner. That was the suggestion from postmaster -- Fredrick P. Seffner.
"A lot of times, the postmaster gets the opportunity to name a particular place. And, so, a lot of times, he names it after himself," Kite-Powell said.
But Lenna lucked out, too. An avenue bearing her name still runs through Seffner today.
Why do they call it that? Now you know.
We get suggestions from time to time for our "Why do they call it that?" segments. But this one came from a surprising place: Iraq.
Well, really from David, who was just days away from shipping out to Iraq. David, thank you for the suggestion and for your service!
We'll be featuring new "Why do they call it that?" stories each Wednesday on 10 News at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m.
Check out previous editions of "Why do they call it that?" plus links to photos and maps from Tampa Bay's past at our "Why do they call it that?" website: wtsp.com/callitthat.
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