The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011

18 The First Hundred Years: Clearwater Yacht Club, 1911-2011 The Clearwater Fire Department was organized in 1911 and staffed with volunteers after a terrible fire (having nothing whatever to do with the “St. Petersburg people”) destroyed much of downtown in 1910. In that same year, the Library Association was formed. A year later, with J. R. Thomson as mayor, a bond issue was passed to pave the main streets of downtown with rocks. In 1916, with funding from Andrew Carnegie (which Taver Bayly helped to procure), the public library was built. Also in that year, a new city charter was created. Among the provisions of this charter was municipal suffrage for women. Clearwater was one of the first towns in the nation to extend voting rights to women. According to the 1917 Woman’s Club history, “ A number of been spread that St. Petersburg people planned to come to Clearwater and burn it down.” According to his granddaughter, Sandy Jamieson, the shotgun bearing “guards” that protected the rising structure from those potentially troublesome “St. Petersburg people” were organized by none other than CYC’s Taver Bayly.

Pinellas County Courthouse in 1912. Courtesy of Heritage Village Archives and Library (P497009).