Discover Florida Tours

05/28/2026

05/27/2026

Estevanico was the first person of African descent to explore the present-day United States, and one of the last four survivors of the Narvaez expedition.

I got a call this week from a reporter with BBC America who is getting ready to publish a feature story about him.

Estevanico landed at or near the Jungle Prada Site in St. Petersburg in 1528. The Narvaez expedition was meant to explore and colonize Spanish Florida, but after many hardships, including shipwrecks and enslavement by Native Americans, Estevanico and three other survivors completed an epic journey covering 2,000 miles through the American interior.

The only thing Cabeza de Vaca says about Estevanico in his famous account of that journey is that he was an Arab black man and a native of Azemmour, Morocco.

As a side note, a couple of years ago I had the Consul General from Morocco in New York come on my Jungle Prada History Tour to see the place Estevanico landed for himself.

Other sources suggest Estevanico had been sold into slavery when he was 22-years-old to a Spanish noblemen named Andres Durantes de Carranza, another of the four survivors. Although he was probably raised Muslim, Estevanico was baptized as a Catholic in Spain because Spain did not allow non-Catholics to travel to the New World.

To learn more about Estevanico you can read one of the many books written about him, visit the Tampa Bay History Center, look for that upcoming BBC America feature, or come on the Jungle Prada Site History Tour!

05/21/2026

We FINALLY got substantial rain in West St. Pete (3+ inches!) and all the plants at the Jungle Prada Site and putting out new green growth and flowering.

The beginning of the rainy season is usually one of the prettiest times of the year in the landscape.

According to Denis Phillips we are still in extreme drought. One indication is that the ground soaked all that water up right away. There's no puddles in the low spots and the ground in the swampy zones is still firm. Maybe that's why we haven't had any trouble with mosquitos yet.

Remember that the fertilizer ban in Pinellas County starts June 1st. We don't use a lot of fertilizer, but now is perfect time if you're going to. There's always a few deficient queen palms around that could use some micronutrients.

Fertilizers containing nitrogen are banned from June 1st until September 30th in order to minimize runoff into the bay which could feed red tide algae blooms in summer among other negative consequences.

05/19/2026

The Florida's Lost Tribes series by Sarasota-based Theodore Morris is the artist's attempt to put names and faces to the groups who lived in Florida at the time of first contact with the Spanish.

Today there are exactly two federally recognized tribes in Florida. The Seminole Tribe of Florida and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida. Some of their ancestors may have lived here in the 1500s.

One thing about this image that's already out of date is that it says Americans have lived in Florida for more than 13,000 years. Now the official number is 14,500 years of humans in Florida, with sites in north Florida that may end up being closer to 20,000 years old.

Discover Florida Tours, through the Jungle Prada History Tour, is dedicated to remembering these "lost tribes" of Florida and doing our best to tell their story as fairly as possible.

Little is known about the Tocobaga people except for what can be learned from objects left behind, scholarly research, and some oral histories -- but by talking about them we, and other organizations such as the Trail of Florida's Indian Heritage, do our best to make sure they are not forgotten.

05/16/2026

We went to Crystal River Archaeological State Park. This was a thriving village for about 1,000 years (AD 50 to AD 1050) where people lived, but also where travelers came to trade goods or take part in communal ceremonies.

One picture is from the top of a 12-foot-high platform mound looking on to a plaza space. This mound may have been used as a stage for speeches or performances, much like we interpret the 12-foot-high plaza at the Jungle Prada Site.

The taller mound, Mound 2, is really quite impressive. It may have had a temple built on top, or it may have been a residence for political leaders. Either way, this 61-acre state park contains the remnants of a settlement where oysters were plentiful, deer roamed the nearby forest, and people lived rich, full lives for 4x longer than the USA has been a country.

We at DFT are always interested in the experiences of people who lived where we live in a different time, and loved this state like we love and cherish Florida today. We're all of us Americans!

05/13/2026

Just a little historical speculating about Boca Ciega Bay...

The "tidal prism" refers to total volume of water that flows in and out of a bay or estuary during one tidal cycle. The sizes of inlets and passes are determined by the amount of water that has to move through them.

A pass usually forms (or migrates) opposite the "center of mass" of the bay. Today Boca Ciega Bay is about 40% filled in by man-made, dredge-and-fill land, but before that, based on the size and shape of the tidal prism, the natural location for a big pass from the gulf would have been a little bit south of today's John's Pass.

The 1848 hurricane that created John's Pass surely jumbled everything around, but in April of 1528, when the Narváez Expedition approached the Jungle Prada Site (marked with a red 'x' on the map), the pass they anchored outside was probably somewhere between John's Pass and Blind Pass.

I'm adding a map created by Jim MacDougald of the bay without man-made land from his research proving the Narváez Expedition must have landed at Upper Boca Ciega Bay. Jim has written several fantastic books on the subject.

A good place/time for more historical speculating is always the Jungle Prado Tour!

05/11/2026

Frances Anderson, seen here at work in her greenhouse, which is now the small museum where we do the intro to our history tour.

One of my favorite quotes of hers was that she always had a "lapful of mud from potting plants". Frances began using a wheelchair at age 11 after surviving polio. A farmer’s daughter from upstate New York, she met her future husband when he worked for father’s farm while on break from college. When her husband’s father fell ill during the Depression they returned to St. Petersburg and reorganized the family contracting business into a lumber company. For 20 years, Mrs. Anderson was secretary-treasurer of Anderson Lumber Co. H.C Anderson Lumber while running a large estate and raising four children.

Each spring, she and her husband opened the grounds of their 3-acre garden and home to the public for tours and plant sales to raise money for the Suncoast Botanical Garden (now Florida Botanical Gardens). She was a member of the Florida Herb Society, the Aeroid Society, the International Fern Society, and the Bromeliad Society. In 1975 she was awarded a plaque presented by the FNGLA (Florida Nursery, Growers & Landscape Association) for her outstanding contributions to the Florida Environmental Horticulture Industry as a private citizen.

Frances had 11 grandchildren and four great grandchildren at the time of her passing in 1988. One of those grandchildren currently runs the Jungle Prada Tour at the family homestead, while a great grandchild just joined the board of directors at Sacred Lands Preservation and Education, which is dedicated to preserving Frances’ jungle estate.

05/09/2026

Paseo del Prado - namesake of Jungle Prado
Did you know Jungle Prada used to be Jungle Prado?

Developer Walter Fuller named it after the Paseo del Prado in Havana Cuba, a tree-lined street and promenade between featuring theaters, hotels, and luxury shops.

The Jungle Prado in West St. Pete first opened it's doors to the public in December of 1924 as a shopping mall. It changed to "Prada" in the 1950s when new ownership converted the building into a hotel.

Until his death in 1973 Walter Fuller called it his "Prado" building. In Fuller's book, "This Was Florida's Boom", he tells the story of how he acquired liquor to create a speakeasy called "The Gangplank" and about a dancer named Paige (Pay-Gee) who once had a wardrobe malfunction while dancing her"tiger dance" that resulted in a packed house the next night!

The Jungle Prada History tour is an award-winning 75-minute history tour of this historic area. Wednesday through Sunday at 11:30.

Jungle Prada Tavern

04/28/2026

This map of archaeological complexes on the lower Pinellas peninsula appeared in The Florida Anthropologist, Volume 76, Number 4, December 2023 in an article by Dr. Robert Austin.

There is so much fascinating information in the article that I haven't been able to process yet, but I thought I'd share some interesting graphics showing where the mound builders settled around present-day St. Pete.

All of these locations represent access to estuaries and abundant sea life, and the interior of the peninsula was likely full of small game and other resources. Settlements usually consisted of a flat plaza with numerous shell mounds and earthworks.

Most of these sites have been destroyed, but you can take a tour of a particularly well-preserved plaza and shell mound at the Jungle Prada Site ( #5 on the map). See the comments for a link to the tour, and have fun exploring the deep history of our beautiful city!

02/05/2026

I captured this image of the peacocks drying their feathers on the seawall after the morning rain. This is going to be my new phone background for sure!