1954 White Manuscript Cartoon, Sunshine Skyway Bridge, Tampa Bay, Florida

Celebrating the opening of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge.

This is a September 1954 original-art manuscript pictorial map of Tampa Bay, Florida, by George White, produced for The Tampa Tribune. It depicts the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, which opened that month and immediately became a critical piece of infrastructure in the Tampa Bay area.

A Closer Look

The map depicts the Tampa Bay area, including Pinellas, Hillsborough, and Manatee Counties. The new Sunshine Skyway Bridge (which opened a day after the illustration was published) is drawn as a piece of thread pulled by a hand holding an attached needle, illustrating the title of the piece. Aside from the Sunshine Skyway Bridge, the already-extant Gandy Bridge is also included but not labeled. Several areas are 'whited out,' reflecting changes made by White (which seemingly included the word 'County' after the names of each of the area's counties).

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans the mouth of Tampa Bay, connecting St. Petersburg in Pinellas County with Terra Ceia in Manatee County. The original bridge, a two-lane cantilever structure, opened in 1954 as part of U.S. Route 19 and was heralded as a major engineering achievement that significantly shortened travel times across the bay. A second parallel span was completed in 1971 to accommodate growing traffic, creating a four-lane crossing.

However, tragedy struck on May 9, 1980, when the freighter MV Summit Venture, navigating through the bay during a sudden storm, collided with a bridge support, causing a section of the southbound span to collapse into the water. Thirty-five people lost their lives when vehicles, including a Greyhound bus, plunged into the bay. In response to the disaster, plans were quickly developed for a new, safer bridge that could better withstand maritime collisions and adverse weather. The current Sunshine Skyway Bridge, a striking cable-stayed structure (the longest cable-stayed concrete bridge in the world), opened to traffic in 1987, becoming an iconic landmark of Florida's Gulf Coast.

Publication History and Census

This illustration was prepared by George White, with a printed version appearing on the editorial page of the Sunday, September 5, 1954, edition of the The Tampa Tribune. Though it was later published, the present work - a draft drawn by the artist's own hand - is an entirely unique manuscript work.

Cartographer

George White (1901 - March 7, 1964) was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan and relocated to Tampa with this family in 1915. White studied art under Tampa artist Walter Collins and began work as a commercial artist at the Tampa Morning Tribune in 1928 and by 1934 was a regular cartoonist at the Tribune. Rather unconventionally, the paper featured his cartoons on the front page. His work displays the evolving course of America's domestic and geopolitics from the interwar period, through World War II, and into the Cold War.   Further Details...

Condition

Very good. Slight soiling and edge wear.