History of Davis Islands: The Book About the Tampa Neighborhood Built From the Bottom of the Bay
David P. Davis sold 300 lots in three hours. The land they sat on did not exist yet.
History of Davis Islands by Rodney Kite-Powell tells the story of one of Florida’s wildest real estate gambles: a Tampa neighborhood dredged from the bottom of Tampa Bay during the 1920s land boom. Davis transformed two tiny mangrove islands into a planned residential city with a golf course, hotels, parks, and canals. On opening day in October 1924, buyers lined up and dropped $1.68 million before lunch.
Kite-Powell, the Saunders Foundation Curator of History at the Tampa Bay History Center, traces the full arc: Davis’s early hustles in Miami real estate, the audacious engineering that created the islands, the frenzy of the boom years, and the mysterious death of Davis himself, who went overboard from a luxury liner in 1926 at age 41. The neighborhood he built outlasted him and is still one of Tampa’s most desirable addresses.
