Time Travel In Tarpon Springs

As we travel the roads in our daily schedules we seem to always be passing an area of trees being torn down to build a housing development or an empty field being paved over for a new road. A once two-lane highway is four lanes wide twenty years later and twenty years after that it will be a six-lane highway. Progress is necessary in the growth of a city, but where did it all start? What was the area like when they were putting in the first roads and, houses. How long ago was that?

I have lived in the town of Tarpon Springs, Florida for the last fifteen years. I have watched the area grow but, the heart of the city in the down town district has stayed the same with very few changes since its beginnings. Many of the buildings that were built over 100 years ago are still standing. Tarpon Springs is rich with historic buildings, homes, churches, and cultural traditions.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson once said, “Photography is a form of time travel.”  Thanks to the photographs that were taken when the town first got its start, we are able to step back in time and see how much has changed since then. After viewing some of the historic photos of the area I wanted to retake some of those photos showing how the places and scenes look today. Rephotography is a sort of “then and now” kind of photography. It is a repeat photo of a place or scene taken years later to show the changes over time.

This is a collection of vintage photographs from the Tarpon Springs area along with a recent photo of each that I have taken showing the changes that happened over time as well as the things that stayed the same.