Dansville

Dansville. . This area was historically known as Dansville, named for one of its founding residents, Dan Henry. The twelfth of fifteen children, Henry moved here from Dawson, Georgia, with his brother Lloyd’s family in the early 1920s. At the time, citrus groves covered the sandy ridges of Pinellas County, and the brothers found employment loading citrus at freight stations on the Seaboard Air Line Railroad. Lloyd was the first to purchase property of his own. In 1928, he built a house and started a grove in nearby Baskin. Dan followed suit, and by 1946 had purchased two 40-acre tracts at this location. He built a house for his family and soon invited other African American families to settle on the property. Smaller lots were created from the master tract by “stepping off” an area large enough to accommodate a new home. Eventually, the tight-knit, self-sufficient community consisted of about 80 houses, a store, and Mt. Olive Baptist Church. On October 3, 1992, a tornado swept through the area. It destroyed 26 homes and damaged many others. As part of recovery, Pinellas County assisted residents in rebuilding, and documented the community’s history through an award-winning oral history project.