Seminole may be the "youngest" incorporated municipality in Pinellas County, but the community has a long and established history. Voters approved the creation of the city on November 15, 1970, and over the last 40-plus years Seminole has expanded through responsible patterns of development and annexation as the area has become a preferred residential and business destination in Greater Tampa Bay. The city's name honors the Native Americans who came to Florida during the 18th century. Settlers began to arrive in the Seminole area in small numbers after the Civil War, attracted by the...

Long before condominiums appeared on the Florida coastline, itinerant fishing parties visited the barrier islands along the Pinellas peninsula. Fewer than 200 people lived in present-day Pinellas County in September 1848, when a destructive hurricane carved Johns Pass. Developers first focused their efforts along the inlet with a settlement known as Mitchell Beach in the early 1910s, but it had only limited success since no bridges connected the island to the mainland. The first bridge opened along Welch Causeway in 1926, and electricity came to the island a few years later. Small, scattered...