Discover Saint Petersburg
St. Petersburg's waterfront has been rebuilt repeatedly, and each generation of pier served a somewhat different city. The Railroad Pier of 1889 combined transport infrastructure with a place people used for fishing and bathing. Brantley Pier followed in 1896, including a horse-drawn flatcar for moving passengers and goods. The waterfront's recreational role grew out of working facilities rather than replacing an empty shoreline.
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The Municipal Recreation Pier opened in 1913, accommodating automobiles as well as leisure activities. From the nearby Central Yacht Basin, Tony Jannus made the inaugural flight of the St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line on January 1, 1914. The event links local waterfront history to the development of scheduled commercial aviation.
Later landmarks reflected changing design ideas. The Mediterranean Revival Million Dollar Pier opened in 1926. The Inverted Pyramid followed in 1973 and remained a familiar waterfront image for decades before closing in 2013. The present Pier District opened in 2020. These are separate structures and periods, not different names for one surviving historic pier.
The St. Petersburg Museum of History near the pier entrance provides photographs, documents, maps and artifacts for examining that evolution. Its collections offer context for a waterfront whose public use has endured even as its buildings changed.
Sources
- St. Pete Pier: Visit the Pier, Historic Timeline: https://stpetepier.org/visit-pier/
- St. Pete Pier: St. Petersburg Museum of History: https://stpetepier.org/stories/explore-the-rich-past-of-the-sunshine-city-at-the-st-petersburg-museum-of-history/