Our St. Petersburg logo carries the Florida alligator over “Florida Territory · Est. 1845,” the year Florida became a state — the shared emblem of every Merlin Classics Florida town. Printed in clean retro black-and-white that reads like an old crate stamp or travel decal, the alligator stands for Florida as a whole; what makes this one St. Petersburg is everything behind it — the sunshine and the bay, the green benches and the murals, and the New Year’s morning the airline age took off from the waterfront.
It found that reason in the weather. St. Petersburg catches sun so reliably that an early paper, the Evening Independent, promised to give its copies away free on any day the sun failed to shine — and rarely had to make good on it. The nickname stuck: the Sunshine City. For half a century downtown was also known for its green benches, thousands of them lining the sidewalks and filling the postcards mailed north by winter visitors. Sunshine, a long bright waterfront, and an unhurried pace pulled tourists and retirees in by the trainload.
Why People Visit St Petersburg
St. Petersburg mixes sunshine, shoreline, and a genuine arts scene in a way few Florida cities can. Visitors come for the waterfront museums and murals, the pier and the bayfront parks, the nearby Gulf beaches, and the easy, bright pace of a city that has earned its Sunshine City name for more than a century. History sits comfortably beside everyday life here, from the spot where the first airline took flight to the gardens and galleries downtown, and the water is never more than a few blocks away.
