What is Gasparilla?

By: Alexandra Hackett

Tampa, Florida - When you look through old black and white photos with the curator of the Tampa Bay History Center, you can almost hear the crowd cheering as the floats make their way through downtown.

As Rodney Kite-Powell explains, the Gasparilla tradition started in 1904. He says the editor of the society section in the Tampa Morning Tribune wanted to spice up the annual May Day parade. She sent a band of pirates to invade the celebration.

"She (Louise Frances-Dodge) organized some local young men, “krewe”, and that is what came to be what is known as Gasparilla," he said.

The festival has certainly changed over the years. It didn't start out as the rowdy, drunken street party that we know today. There were no beads, no alcohol, just good old-fashion fun.

"They started throwing coins in the 1950’s. When I was a kid they threw the shells they fired from the gun and you could feel the still warm shells,” said Kite-Powell.

We hear the name a lot this time of year, “Jose Gaspar”. He supposedly was a Spanish naval officer turned pirate who terrorized the Caribbean in the early 1800s. But Kite-Powell says it’s just a myth.

"As far as anyone knows he never existed. There have been historians who have gone to Spain to look through records and they never found him," he said.

Still this time every year, hundreds of thousands of people line the streets in Tampa hoping he'll show up for his own party.

The Saint Yago knight parade is on Saturday, February 16. It started in the 1970s. The “children’s parade”, which was canceled last weekend due to weather, is said to be the closest thing these days to the original celebration.

Click on "video story" to see parade footage from 1928!