The Yellow Team

Local Place

Heritage Park

Phi Mu Alumni Chapter in Clearwater, FL has a sister, Martha Coachman McBride, whose family has changed life as we know it today. Within Heritage Village, people can visit the McMullen-Coachman cabin where Martha’s grandparents lived with their three children, including Martha's father. The cabin was built in 1852 by Capt. James McMullen, an early pioneer settler of Pinellas County. Martha’s grandfather, S.S. Coachman, bought the citrus groves with the cabin on it around 1908. Today, it is the oldest existing structure in Pinellas County, Florida.

The Phi Mu Alumni Chapter had an event of a lifetime, visiting Heritage Village and listening to Martha unravel the adventure of her family’s history. It turns out that Martha’s grandfather, SS Coachman, came to Florida in the 1880’s with three of his brothers from Lowdnes County, Georgia. After teaching school in Plant City, SS and his brother, E. H. Coachman moved to what was then the western part of Hillsborough County. It turns out that people had to travel a great distance on a horse and carriage to Hillsborough County to register all legal documents such as marriages and so on. So her Grandfather campaigned for the separation of the Pinellas Peninsula from Hillsborough County. After the creation of Pinellas County in 1912, it was a race to build the first court house and become the county seat between the two cities, St. Petersburg and Clearwater. It turns out that Coachman along with other citizens in Clearwater were the armed guards for 24 hours so that the first courthouse could be built within 48 hours and to prevent the people living St. Petersburg from stopping them. Since they won the race, Martha’s grandfather became the first chairman of the Pinellas County Commission.

This site includes all the links to explore Heritage Village, how to plan your next visit, and how to get involved. Heritage Village is a museum where children can run and play as they see a little bit of Tampa Bay History. The website to Heritage Village has a lot of information but it lacks a sense of visual interest. One way to make the site more interesting would be to change the hyperlinks. They could make hyperlinks into pictures of the different buildings within the park. The website is easy to navigate with lots of great information. I noticed that the web site used CSS and an exterior style sheet. Using the exterior style sheet, the web designer has made the various pages consistent.

© Yellow Team 2009 .