Floridian Getaways 2008 - (Page 10) cities & towns SAFETY HARBOR by Chelle Koster Walton Here; Safety Harbor Resort and Spa. Healing Waters on Tampa Bay A town with a healthy spring in its step T he towering, witchy-armed oak trees in Philippe Park are so gnarled that the ancient faces of those who once worshipped here seem to peek out from their trunks. Or maybe I’ve watched too many Disney animated films. These Spanish moss-covered oaks hunker around a 20-foot-tall Tocobago Indian mound that looms over upper Tampa Bay and stands as the first layer of mysticism and magic that springs forth from the city of Safety Harbor. Tribes migrated here to absorb the healing powers of its natural mineral springs. Hernando de Soto, believing he had found the Fountain of Youth, named it Springs of the Holy Spirit. Legend has it that Odet Philippe, the first non-native settler and namesake of today’s park, used the waters to treat wounded pirates who pulled into the natural safe harbor. By the late 1930s, ads for the Safety Harbor Sanatorium & Hotel proclaimed that, “To visit the Sanatorium is to bestow upon yourself the gift of health brewed by the Great Chemist.” In 1945, the sanatorium became the Safety Harbor Spa, a landmark that still anchors the town to the bay and to a passion for good health. You arrive in Safety Harbor because you are purposely headed there. It’s not situated where you’d just happen to pass through en route to another destination. You have to punch it into your GPS and find it. You must willingly discover it, a happy side trip from the St. Petersburg/Clearwater bustle. “People come for the spa and the small-town atmosphere,” says Helene Shepard, innkeeper at the town’s Ibis Bed & Breakfast. Safety Harbor Museum of Regional History, Les Griffith Photography. 10 Floridians.VISITFLORIDA.com http://Floridians.VISITFLORIDA.com
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