Tampa Bay History Center
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| Established | 2009 |
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| Location | Tampa, Florida, United States |
| Coordinates | 27°56′34″N 82°27′01″W / 27.942702°N 82.45041°W |
| Website | www |
Tampa Bay History Center is a history museum in Tampa, Florida. Exhibits include coverage of the Tampa Bay area's first native inhabitants, Spanish conquistadors, and historical figures who shaped the area's history, as well as a reproduction of a 1920s cigar store. The museum is on the waterfront at 801 Old Water Street in Tampa’s Channelside District. It opened on January 17, 2009.
The History Center building is60,000 square feet (5,600 m2) with 25,000 square feet (2,300 m2) of exhibit space.
The Tampa Bay History Center includes three floors of permanent and temporary exhibition space covering 12,000 years of Florida history, with a special focus on Tampa Bay and the Gulf Coast. The History Center has a museum store, classrooms, the Witt Research Center (a branch of the Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System), a map gallery, an event hall and the Columbia Cafe (a branch of Ybor City's Columbia Restaurant).
The History Center is one of the largest on the west coast of Florida and includes hands-on, kid-friendly activities, as well as cutting edge interactive exhibits and theaters.
The Tampa Bay History Center is open daily from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. Regular admission is $12.95 for adults, $10.95 for students, seniors and children between the ages of 13 and 17, and $7.00 for children ages four to twelve.
Hillsborough County was 14 times its present size when it was established by the Florida Territorial Legislature in 1834. Its boundaries included all or part of 24 present-day counties, stretching from Ocala to Lake Okeechobee and St. Petersburg to Orlando.
In the early 1880s, Tampa residents expressed concern that there was no organized effort to preserve and display local artifacts. In the January 19, 1882, issue of The Sunland Tribune, County Judge J. G. Knapp wrote, "... no time should be lost in snatching the historical artifacts from the waste and death of oblivion. Who shall do it?"
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