Professor launches interactive map of Bay Area waterways to teach its history

History of the Creekshed

FOX 13's Jennifer Kveglis reports.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. - A USF St. Pete english professor collaborated with local creatives to launch an interactive map sharing the stories of our waterways.

It's called Creekshed: Ekphrastic Writing with the Archives.

The backstory:

Dr. Thomas Hallock said the idea came to him while hunkering down during Hurricane Helene.

"We watched the waves crash over Lansing Park, into our neighborhood," Hallock added. "We saw Salt Creek, which became this enormous floodplain."

Fortunately, his home was spared. Hallock, however, realized that there was a lesson, or many, to be learned.

"These waterways are going to make themselves known to us whether we like them or not," Hallock said.

Hallock said it's important to learn their stories and share them with the community. He then got to brainstorming the idea of "Creekshed" as an interactive map.

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"We want people to be able to find their spot, whether they live in Bartow or St. Pete or Gulfport or Tampa," Hallock said. "We want them to be able to find their own homeplace and learn their story."

Local perspective:

Through a USFSP campus cooperation grant, he joined forces with 15 to 20 local creatives and library staff.

"We have a huge range of artists, writers and creators. We have some historians and commentators," Hallock added. "We have some spoken-word poets."

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Hallock said it does include some uplifting contributions.

"Amanda Hagood, a professor at Eckerd College, wrote a beautiful piece about Maximo Point down on the southern point of the Pinellas peninsula, being with her mom, and she's getting up there in years," Hallock added. "Pedro Jarquin wrote a really beautiful piece on Ybor City."

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Hallock continued, saying, "Julie [Armstrong] wrote about the travels of Father John Culmer, who was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement in Florida and a leader in the black Episcopalia, establishing the first black Episcopalian church in St. Petersburg."

What they're saying:

Hallock's contribution, however, is a bit grimmer.

"I happened to lose a younger member of my family on Treasure Island, and I started thinking about people who died at the beach," Hallock added. "That was really the heartbreak that I was trying to process."

His piece alludes to a photo taken on Treasure Island in the 1920s.

"Here's a power line running out to a dock in the middle of it. The question is, what could go wrong?" Hallock said.

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Lake Placid-based singer and songwriter Rita Youngman, who belongs to the Seminole Tribe, contributed a song she wrote about visiting Egmont Key twice in search of a mass grave.

"[It was once] a concentration camp for Seminoles out there. They would gather them up and put them there so that they couldn't escape," Youngman said.

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Youngman was unsuccessful but hopes to educate people about her experience.

"It's very important that they see it from the Seminoles' point of view, because that's never been taken seriously," Youngman said.

Big picture view:

Hallock said the project is ongoing.

To celebrate Earth Day, USF St. Pete is hosting an official launch event for Creekshed on Tuesday.

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"It's going to start at 4:00 p.m. at the St. Petersburg campus library, and at the beginning it's going to have a set by the singer-songwriter Rita Youngman," Hallock said. "After that, we're going to have four or five of the participants and the contributors of the Creekshed read their pieces, and then we'll have a chance to meet the authors."

For more information, click here.

The Source: FOX 13's Jennifer Kveglis collected the information in this story.

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