Hernando de Soto named the springs here in 1539. Espiritu Santo — “Springs of the Holy Spirit” — is what the Spanish called the natural mineral spring at the north end of Tampa Bay, and the name outlasted the expedition by nearly 500 years. It’s still what the water is called today, on a spa property that’s been drawing people to this specific spot for reasons that go back well before Florida was a state.
The Tocobaga were here first
The Tocobaga lived around Tampa Bay from roughly 900 to 1500 A.D., and Safety Harbor was their principal town — the seat of the Tocobaga chiefdom itself. They built ceremonial mounds for burials, and archaeologists have pulled pottery and copper, shell and stone artifacts from sites around town. A 6,000-year-old spearhead turned up at Marshall Street Park in 2008, which tells you people were using this stretch of shoreline for thousands of years before the Tocobaga chiefdom existed at all.
Philippe Park, just north of downtown, still has one of the best-preserved Tocobaga temple mounds in Florida — open, walkable, and free, overlooking the bay.
Why it’s called Safety Harbor
The name dates to the early 1700s, when pirates working Tampa Bay made this stretch of water genuinely dangerous. Ships that made it to this particular harbor were considered safe from attack — hence the name, which stuck long after the pirate threat did not.
Odet Philippe, a French count credited with introducing grapefruit cultivation to Florida, acquired 160 acres here in 1842 — the area’s first permanent non-Native settler. The park bears his name today. Safety Harbor itself didn’t formally incorporate until 1917.
The spring water business
By the 20th century, the mineral springs had gone from Tocobaga ceremonial ground to bottled commercial product to health resort. The Safety Harbor Resort and Spa still operates on the site and was designated a historical landmark by the U.S. Department of the Interior in 1964 — a rare case of a Florida tourist attraction and an actual archaeological site sharing the same address.
Good to know
Safety Harbor sits on the north side of Tampa Bay in Pinellas County, just east of Dunedin. The 2020 census counted 17,072 residents.
For the Scottish town next door, there’s why Dunedin incorporated to ban pigs, and for everything else on the calendar, what’s on across Tampa Bay this August.
Photo: Ebyabe, licensed CC BY 2.5, via Wikimedia Commons.