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

Chapter 2 BCol eoamr,wBa t ue rs t a, nadn dCBY aCc kd Au r ignagi nt:h e 1920s and 1930s

On October 25, 1921, Clearwater was hit by a disastrous hurricane. The winds are estimated to have exceeded 100 miles per hour and the water rose to 10.5 feet above sea level. Ships and yachts were washed ashore and homes all over the Tampa Bay Area were damaged or destroyed (Dunn, 1974; Pinellas County Planning Department, 2008). My mother (then four years old) vividly remembered friends from St. Petersburg arriving at her home in South Tampa by boat—and she did not live on, or even very near, the water. The storm made landfall at Tarpon Springs, which meant that Clearwater bore the brunt of its fury (Dunn, 1974). Within a very short period of time, however, the area rallied from this devastation and became swept up in a storm of a very different sort—the Florida Land Boom. 23