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Photo of William Morris

By 1911, the new town of Ruskin was a thriving, cooperative community, and founder George Miller sought to create a ‘twin town’ to the east. Through a complex series of land deals involving Wimauma Founder Captain C. H. Davis, Miller acquired development rights to lands northeast of Wimauma.

It was here, midway between Wimauma and Balm, along the Seaboard Air Lines rail tracks, that Miller laid out his new town: Morris Park, named in honor of William Morris of England. Morris was the philosophical successor to England’s John Ruskin, whose ideas of social organization and education initially inspired Miller to found Ruskin in 1908.

The small town of Lillibridge in SE Hillsborough County, near Picnic, no longer exists. If you travel East on Jameson Road off of SR 37, you'll cross a bridge over the South prong of the Alafia River. It was along these banks that Lillibridge was first settled in 1889 and fully established by 1897. The town was a sizeable mining community that died out when nearby phosphate mines closed and moved operations elsewhere in the County.

These three reports detail each of the historical resources listed on the Hillsborough County Historic Resource data base. Each of these properties is privately owned, and owners (which can be governmental units) has the potential to apply to the County Commission to be listed as a Registered Historic Landmark. Those so designated are overseen by a community review board, the Historic Resources Review Board, which is in turn managed by the Hillsborough County Growth and Management section of county government. These three documents are an excellent resource for resources on existing historical structures in Unincorporated Hillsborough County.

Bahia Beach was created by Developers Paul and Lyle Dickman as a popular bay beach facility. This collection includes photos and artifacts relative to that resort area. Today it is known as Little Harbor, containing a resort hotel, restaurants, homes, and marina facilities.

This collection houses photographs of the A. P. Dickman extended family for three generations.

A large collection of Ruskin Farm Photos provided by the Dickman family. Pay particular attention to the photos relating to pre-packing of vegetables before shipment as this was, perhaps, Paul B. Dickman's greatest contribution to the farming industry was in the pioneering of Prepackaged vegetables designed to cut out wholesale middlemen and get products in the customers' hands more efficiently and quickly. These photos depict many aspects of that process.

These calendars all contain important photographs of South County locations, businesses and people that are an important record of life in South County. Many of these calendars were produced by Gardinier Phosphate Company and later Mosaic.

Items related to the history of Gulf City Florida one of South County's oldest communities. (Now incorporated into Ruskin 1921)

Collection contains items related to the history of Apollo Beach, including it's creation

The Shopper Observer News was first published in 1958. Many of its historic issues have been lost. It was, and remains, an important news source for local, South County news detailing the issues, people and businesses of South County. Only issues no longer available will be published here. For more recent editions, please contact the News Observer staff in Sun City Center.