|
The Tampa Tour with
a Twist |
Experience the always interesting, frequently hilarious history of Tampa
Bay as it should be experienced -- through the people who lived it!
Award-winning actors in elaborate period costumes serve as your guides
to the Tampa of today and yesterday. |
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Featuring
"Secret Ybor, Scandals, Crimes, and Shady Ladies"
History becomes Horror on the
Premiere Ghost Walk Tour of the Neighborhood, since 2002
Some highlights of
Historic Guides' tours:
Ybor City, with its rum-running gangsters, cigar industry violence, and colorful
immigrant residents;
The Tampa Bay Hotel, most luxurious resort of its time: the "Alhambra of the
South;"
Port Tampa City, where Plant System ships steamed to Cuba and massive bales of
Cuban tobacco were unloaded;
Bayshore Boulevard, the "boulevard of dreams," financed with New York money and
local politics;
Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders, yellow fever epidemics, Civil War skirmishes,
wild 1920s land speculation, Mafia "hit lists", flim-flam artists and Free Love
parades...
It's all brought to unforgettable life by the actor/historians of Historic
Guides. Your Guide may be Teddy Roosevelt himself, eager to depart for the
"bully" adventure of the Spanish-American War. Or Annie Marron, the Queen of
Below Stairs Gossip at the Tampa Bay Hotel, a perky maid whose tongue wags about
the exploits of the Hotel's famous guests. Historic Guides' presentations
are deeply researched by the service's Director, Maureen Patrick, M.A.,
a cultural historian, native Tampan, and frequently published author on the
area.
The Guides conduct tours on foot, by bus, by vintage streetcar and trolley, or
any combination of these. Tours range from 1-hour guided visits to a historic
museum to half-day excursions or full-day trips. Tour groups may add a
Historic Guide to a charter package booked on their own, or allow Historic
Guides to make all the arrangements. This flexibility in price and format allows
you to tailor the experience to the time and needs of your group, while
providing an unforgettable, educational, fun-filled, and interactive Tampa tour.
