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Aerial view of the old Buena Vista Trailer City. Photo by Angelo Deciucies. Dan Bornt sent in the following
notes on this aerial view.
This is an aerial photo of the old Buena Vista Trailer City, looking east, taken sometime in the late 1950s or early 1960s, but definitely before 1962*, owned and developed by the Bartelt Brothers. On the left side of Buena Vista is a huge tract of land that would become the future Tahitian/Aloha Gardens. At the bottom is the Pappas Family's horse ranch and the sink that would be dredged out to become Lake Conley. In the center of the picture we see the intersection of US 19 (left is north toward New Port Richey, right is south toward Clearwater) and Bonita Rd./Mile Stretch. Around 1962-64 a Kwik-Chek supermarket was built on the southeast corner of US 19 and Mile Stretch, which can be seen here as tree-covered tract. (Before this, the closest supermarket was the old Publix on Tarpon Avenue in downtown Tarpon Springs.) Just to the north of the intersection on the west side of 19 was the popular Pasco/Pinellas "watering hole" of the Golden Nugget. (Either only partially visible or not built yet.) By 1965 a Shell gasoline service station had been established on the southwest corner of Bonita and US 19. Most all of the structures visible are single-wide trailers with carports (they weren't called mobile homes back then), but there may have been some houses on a couple of the streets behind the Golden Nugget. Many of the street names of Buena Vista have been changed. At this time the three main east west streets were, starting at the left (north), Coronado (Lange) Rd., Bonita Rd., and Buena Vista La. The north-south streets in the section north of Bonita Dr. were, starting at the first street in from 19, Holiday Dr., Treasure Dr. (now Hess Dr.), Melody Dr., Sunset Dr. (now Kepner Dr.), Orange Dr., Lullaby Dr., Pleasure Dr., Shady Cove Dr., Desoto Dr. (now Hoyle Dr.), Lakeview Dr. (now Speck Dr.), and Roselawn Dr. Ditto for the south section except for Roselawn. Sometime around 1962 - 64 the Tarpon Springs Post Office which serviced Buena Vista established a tiny branch office on Holiday Drive (after this photo was taken), from which the community of Holiday took its name. Where Holiday Drive extends to the south beyond Buena Vista Lane, two streets go east and west between Holiday Dr. and Orange Dr. They were Sunshine La. (now Kibler) and Leisure La. (now Morlock). Farther to the south on the north side of U.S. 19-A is the small housing development of Adell Gardens on Manton. By 1965, Sunshine La. was extended west parallel to Buena Vista La. and another small development of single family concrete-block houses, Lullaby Gardens, was carved out of the heavy wooded area shown in the picture behind Buena Vista Lane. A sandy trail ran from the south side through Adell Gardens over to US 19-A that could be traversed by car if there hadn't been a sustained dry spell. Buena Vista residents occasionally took this short cut to 19-A. 19-A is barely visible at the extreme right of the photo angling off toward Anclote and Tarpon Springs. *We can confirm that this photo was taken prior to 1962 because the trailer we stayed in at that time on Shady Cove Dr. hadn't been installed yet and is missing from the photo. Dan Bornt |