Joe Marzo

By Joe Marzo For three springs in the 1920s, the small sponge diving town of Tarpon Springs, Florida, traded its quiet winter routine for the crack of a bat and the buzz of major league baseball. From 1925 through 1927, the St. Louis Browns of the American League made Tarpon Springs their spring training home, and in doing so left behind a piece of local history that still bears the name of one of the greatest players of the era: George Sisler. A Team Looking for a Home Before settling in...

By Joe Marzo Tucked along the Anclote River on Florida's Gulf Coast, Tarpon Springs is known today as the "Sponge Capital of the World" and home to one of the largest Greek American communities in the country. But long before sponge boats and Epiphany celebrations defined the city, it was a handful of pioneer families and a leaping silver fish that gave the town its name. A Teenage Girl's Suggestion The most widely told origin story centers on a teenager named Mary Ormond. In 1876, A. W....

By Joe Marzo You've seen the street that bears the Safford name, and perhaps some of you have been to the Safford House Museum in town. But what you probably don't know is that Dr. Mary Jane Safford is quite possibly the most interesting woman most people have never heard of. She walked these streets. She treated patients here, white and black alike, charging those who could pay and seeing the rest for free. She may well have saved Tarpon Springs from the yellow fever epidemic that ravaged...