Tarpon Springs, Florida

JUDY B. SPAKE - JUDY B. SPAKE DBA - REAL ESTATE SERVICES - TARPON SPRINGS, FL Your Around the Clock REALTOR Page: FL/DBA | RePageRank: 767 | Points: 4,710 | Quality Score: 2 | Posted on December 13, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Local Information for TARPON SPRINGS, FL

Latitude: 28.148658 -- Longitude: -82.758098

Other Area Cities:   Hudson  Tarpon Springs  Bayonet Point  Dunedin  Holiday  New Port Richey  Oldsmar  Palm Harbor  Port Richey  Safety Harbor  Clearwater 

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The region, with a series of bayous feeding into the Gulf of Mexico, first attracted attention as a place for winter homes about 1876. Some of the newly arrived visitors spotted fish jumping out of the waters and so named the location Tarpon Springs. The first Greek immigrants arrived to this city during the 1880s, when they were hired to work as divers in the growing sponge harvesting industry. In 1905, John Cocoris introduced the technique of sponge diving to Tarpon Springs. Cocoris recruited Greek sponge divers from the Dodecanese Islands and by the 1930s, the sponge industry of Tarpon Springs was very productive, generating millions of dollars a year. When a red tide algae bloom occurred in 1947, wiping out the sponge fields in that region of the Gulf of Mexico, most of the sponge boats and divers switched to fishing and shrimping for a livelihood. -- Source: Wikipedia.com