F. A. Davis

Frank Allston Davis (September 8, 1850 – January 2, 1917 ) was a publishing executive who founded the F. A. Davis Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. After moving to the Tampa Bay Area, he introduced electricity to St. Petersburg, Florida, and founded the city of Pinellas Park.

Early life Davis was born in Duxbury, Vermont, and, as a child, worked as a groundskeeper and attended school. His mother died in 1861, after which he lived with Samuel Cook Turner. By 1872, he earned $30 per month as a teacher.

Davis relocated to Philadelphia and worked as an agent for several publishing firms. In 1879, he was working as an agent for the largest medical publisher in the world, William Wood and Company when he formed his own publishing company, F. A. Davis Company. In the same year, Davis married Elizabeth Irene Craven. He paid $80,000 for a 500-passenger steamboat named Favorite which first arrived on October 17, 1906, and was a popular attraction at the Electric Pier.

Davis's progress – and St. Petersburg's in general – was hampered when Tampa tycoon Henry B. Plant purchased the city's lifeline, the Orange Belt Railroad, in 1906. Davis was dealt another blow by the banking panic of 1907. Two years later, he shifted control of much of his St. Petersburg holdings to his occasional rival, H. Walter Fuller. After a conflict over St. Petersburg waterfront area, Davis purchased of Hamilton Disston's land around 1911 and established the city of Pinellas Park. Davis, his son, and P. J. McDevitt advertised the new city, drawing people from Pennsylvania and Ohio. McDevitt became the city's first mayor. Davis sold a free lot in Pinellas Park for every ten-acre farm purchased, resulting in 111 farm sales from 1910 to 1912. Lack of drainage in Pinellas Park caused problems in August 1915, when of rain fell.

Davis died in Philadelphia from heart failure, reportedly due to World War I and concern over his estate. Jacob Disston closed out Davis's remaining holdings in Florida while his wife, Elizabeth, remained involved with F. A. Davis Company until her death in 1964.