According to local legend, city co-founders John C. Williams and Peter Demens flipped a coin to see who would have the honor of naming the new community. Demens won the bet and named the city after Saint Petersburg, Russia, where he had spent half his youth.

They don't call it "The Sunshine City" for nothing. St. Petersburg set a Guinness World Record with 768 consecutive days of sunshine between 1967 and 1969.

The St. Petersburg flag was designed in 1927 by Mayor C.J. Maurer and a committee of public officials. It has five equal horizontal stripes of orange, red, green, dark blue, and medium blue. In the center, stretching from the top to the bottom edge, is a large white pelican, which has become something of a city mascot and led to the popularity of the "Feed the Pelican Fund", which provides food for the endangered brown pelican during the winter months.

The St. Petersburg-Tampa Airboat Line began flying across Tampa Bay on January 1, 1914. The airplane could carry only one passenger at a time, and the flight took 23 minutes--11 hours less than traveling between St. Petersburg and Tampa by rail. Although the Airboat Line lasted just three months, it safely transported 1,204 passengers across the bay and is generally considered the first commercial flight.

Like the rest of the Tampa Bay area, St. Petersburg is regularly affected by tropical storms and hurricanes. However, the city hasn't been struck directly by a hurricane since 1946.

Developed by Thomas Rowe and opened in 1928, The Don CeSar gained renown as the Gulf playground for America's rich and famous at the height of the Jazz Age. Named after Don César de Bazan, the hero of William Vincent Wallace's opera Maritana, the "Pink Palace" can be seen for miles to the east and west and has its place on nautical charts as a permanent marker for boaters. Today, the color is protected by law as a mariner's guide.

Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon was searching for the fabled Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida in 1513. A few centuries later, in 1889, mining industrialist Edwin H. Tomlinson dug a well when he built a long pier at the foot of Third Avenue so that his father could go fishing in the bay. The well was later purchased by Dr. Jesse F. Conrad, who named it the "Fountain of Youth" and sold rejuvenating drinks from the spring. The claims of the medicinal value of the water may not have been totally without merit. An analysis in 1971 revealed that the water had an extremely high concentration of lithium, a drug used in the treatment of manic depression.

After nearly three decades of fruitless attempts to gain an expansion franchise or lure an existing team to St. Petersburg, the city finally scored a win when Major League Baseball approved an ownership group led by Vince Naimoli on March 9, 1995, and the Tampa Bay Devil Rays began play in the 1998 MLB season. The team's name was eventually changed from "Devil Rays" to "Rays" and now refers to a burst of sunshine rather than a manta ray--though a manta ray logo remains on the uniform sleeves.

The Comfort Station at Second Avenue and Bayshore Drive is a public restroom that serves as an historic landmark in St. Pete, but some visitors have gotten more than they bargained for. Many have encountered mysterious figures while washing their hands or heard noises from empty stalls, and there have been reports of blurry figures in the mirror in the women's bathroom. One visitor even claimed to have had a conversation with the ghostly blur!

There are a number of demonyms for St. Petersburg residents, including St. Petersburger, St. Peteian, Burgian, and St. Petersburgite.