How a St. Petersburg museum is helping tell the city's story

Historical maps of St. Petersburg on display

FOX 13 Photojournalist Barry Wong highlights the work of the St. Petersburg Museum of History's Archives and Collections department, which houses thousands of maps that help tell the story of the city.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - The St. Petersburg Museum of History Archives and Collections department houses thousands of maps that help tell the story of the city.

"I think it's really being able to see how the city develops," St. Petersburg Museum of History Archives and Collections Manager Jessy Breckenridge said. "Some of the maps in the collection represent a St. Petersburg that is entirely different from the one that we know today."

Breckenridge provided examples of milestones represented in map form, from Beach Drive being on the water in an 1890s map to Central Avenue’s first appearance in an early 1900s map.

Breckenridge opened a file cabinet containing some of the thousands of maps at the St. Petersburg Museum of History Archives and Collections are kept

Jessy Breckenridge opened a file cabinet containing some of the thousands of maps at the St. Petersburg Museum of History

"It can just make you feel a lot more connected to where you are, to look at how things grow and change and develop and see where you sit in that," Breckenridge said.

In the museum’s downstairs area, the largest map in the collection is framed. It’s one piece of a three-piece giant map.

"This was one of our fun projects where we all kind of gathered around and were looking at landmarks on it, trying to put a date on it," Breckenridge said. "We decided it's probably sometime in the 1930s by the presence of things like the Albert Whitted Airport or, let's say, like the Vinoy. The land had been dredged and filled and stuff like that."

Most people visit Breckenridge to research the land on which their home sits, learning what was there before construction or who owned an older property before them.

"I think it's important to respect the history of a place and being able to draw a line in time between where we sit now and where we did 100 years ago or where we will in the future," Breckenridge said.

The collection also features postcards, photos, and many other items documenting St. Petersburg.