Palm Harbor is located in unincorporated Pinellas County, Florida. Palm Harbor is made up of 28 square miles, 17 miles of land and 10 miles of water.
Palm Harbor is located 22 miles north of St. Petersburg and west of Tampa situated between the coastal cities of Dunedin and Tarpon Springs. It is largely residential with several concentrations of commerce.
The Downtown Palm Harbor Historic District is located north of Tampa Road between US 19 N and Omaha Street and over the years has been host many small shops and eateries. There is also a handful of historic buildings.
Palm Harbor is also home to Innsbrook Golf Resort which opened in 1970 and is home to an annual PGA Tour stop, the Valspar Championship.
The area of Palm Harbor was largely uninhabited until settlers began arriving in the 1860s. A post office named "Bay St. Joseph" opened in 1878. In 1881, Henry B. Plant opened the San Marino Hotel in what later became Palm Harbor in 1885. The Sutherland Improvement Company acquired land in the Curlew/Bay St. Joseph area and developed it into the settlement of Sutherland. In 1888 the Sutherland Post Office opened. The Orange Belt Railway reached Sutherland in 1890.
The name was changed to Palm Harbor in 1925. Sutherland boasted two beautiful hotels, the larger one becoming Southern College in 1902. In 1985, the Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners enacted County Code 85–28, which set into place the Palm Harbor Community Services Agency (PHCSA), a special taxing district to which tax was levied in the form of millage to provide for recreational and library services to the unincorporated community.
Palm Harbor is an unincorporated part of Pinellas County. HB 183 – Town of Palm Harbor/Pinellas County,from 2009, was the most recent local bill that would have scheduled a referendum allowing Palm Harbor voters the opportunity to decide whether they wanted to incorporate, but the bill died in committee. Pinellas County legislators had voted on January 22, 2009, to support a bill allowing voters in Palm Harbor to decide whether they wanted their unincorporated community to become the county's 25th city.
It passed but was shot down by the Pinellas County Commission. In 1994 community members recognize the need to create an attractive downtown that would maintain the character and heritage of the area.
In 2021, Pinellas County adopted the Downtown Historic Palm Harbor Master Plan which outlined a series of recommendations for improvement within the downtown. In 2002, the Old Palm Harbor Downtown Zoning District was adopted providing standards as well as regulations.
The Downtown Palm Harbor Historic District (DPHHD) covers roughly 25 acres of land or approximately 8 blocks or contribution and noncontributing structures in the historic district. There was a total of 9 contributing structures until Peggy Oneil’s was torn down, there is currently 8 historic structures in the historic district but several in the surrounding historic areas.
The Fred E. Marquis Pinellas Trail runs parallel with Alt 19 thru the historic district. The trail is a protected green space built on the abandoned railroad corridor which once was the Orange Belt Railway from Tarpon Springs to Clearwater. As of August 2025 the Pinellas Trail Loop will extend to 75 miles and is used for walking, jogging, skating, and biking.
Palm Harbor has recently acquired a Golf Cart Zone designation which is bordered on the west by Palm Harbor Boulevard on the east by Belcher Road and multiple community streets, on the north by Delaware Ave and Kansas Avenue, and the south by Tampa Road allowing for golf carts to operate on roadways in unincorporated Pinellas County within the adopted boundaries.
Historic District of Palm Harbor is home to several historic buildings and sites.
Here is just a few of our favorites from the historic district and surrounding areas including:
1. Rheba Sutton White Chapel - located at 1190 Georgia Ave. The historic facility, which was under Pinellas County ownership previously, lacked the funding to keep its doors open and was given to the Palm Harbor Community Services District in November 2012. Now managed by the District's parks and recreation department, the chapel was completely restored and is the site for many banquets, weddings and community special events. Harbor Hall, the banquet facility built next to the chapel, also serves as a banquet and recreational space.
2. JC Cravers Building - located at 1123 Florida ave, home to the Masonic Lodge for several decades and is now under construction and set to open as a local eatery, JC Cravers Corner.
3. Iris & Ivy Building - located 1126 Florida Ave, at the top of Florida Avenue with a great view of St. Joseph Sound. Currently under construction and set to open as the Shamrock Tavern.
4. Ozona Village Hall - located at 341 Bay Street, operates to preserve the records of the Ozona community and is available for rentals, showers and group meetings. In 1895, Dr. Susan K. Whitford and other local women founded the Ozona Ladies Improvement Society, which focused on community development initiatives. Early meetings were held in members' homes, and it was quickly decided that a permanent meeting hall was needed. Members used bake sales, ice cream socials, and seafood dinners to raise funds to cover construction costs. They also secured commitments for donated materials and labor. In 1900, the Ozona Village Improvement Society (OVIS) incorporated to take over the hall's ownership and operation. The hall served as a polling place, library, town hall, dance hall, theater, church, and meeting place. It survived hurricanes in 1918 and 1921, and was nearly burned down in 1933.
5. Gulf Shores Park - is the oldest park in unincorporated Pinellas county lining the shores of Crystal Beach, which is one of the first communities in Pinellas County settled in 1850. Gulf Shores Park got its Historical Marker on November 9, 2021, after surviving over 100 years of helping preserve the character of Crystal Beach. This is the best place in Palm Harbor to watch the sunset and enjoy the beautiful gulf breezes and oak trees lined coastal park.
6. Palm Harbor Barbershop - located at 1122 Florida Ave has been serving downtown Palm Harbor for over 3 decades and occupies one of the oldest buildings in Pinellas County.
7. Palm Harbor’s Historic “white mansion” located at Pennsylvania Avenue. The 4329 sq ft mansion is three stories and boasts beautiful crown moldings, giant windows and ws built in 1925 by A.B. Coleman.
8. Palm Harbor Museum - located at 2043 Curlew Road and built in 1914. The county purchased the historic Hartley House at the corner of Curlew and Belcher Road which renovated and opened in 1998. The nearly 110 year old Hartley House features a turn of the century parlor and artifact collection. The museum is opened Thursday - Saturday from 10am - 2pm for a self guided or docent tour and there is no charge to visit the museum.
9. Wall Springs Park Historical Marker - In 1927, the Wall family sold the spring to Harry W. Davis. Davis, an entrepreneur from New York, changed the name from Wall Springs to Health Springs. Extolling the medicinal properties of spring waters, Davis printed handbills advertising the spring's health benefits stating that the waters "sooth and aid sufferers of high blood pressure, bladder or kidney complications and inflammation of the joints."
10. Dean Parks Flagpole @ Pop Stansel Historical Marker - To honor our nation, the freedoms we cherish and the men and women who serve in protecting our freedom. In loving memory of Captain Dean Parks, who taught hundreds of local youth how to fish.
11. Mr. Hartley’s Mules Historical Marker @ Hartley House - Family stories and photos verify that two mules pulled a wagon, plows, and mowing equipment to aid the Hartley family in tending a citrus grove that existed here when this property was purchased from John S. Whitehurst. The mules sheltered in a corral and pole barn located 150 feet north of this signage. By 1914 Thomas Hartley decided to no longer pursue citrus farming. Instead he established a Ladder Factory to supply the needs of area grove owners. The Hartley mule team pulled Mr. Hartley's wagon to Tampa, and to other locations, for delivery of ladders, to get supplies, and to transport pine and cypress logs, from area forests, for use within the Ladder Factory.
12. Ethnobotany Marker - located at Curlew Rd and Belcher Rd. Living Landscape serves to broaden an appreciation of how native plant species play an important role in the social, cultural, and economic traditions of those who live on the landscape. Plants provide food, medicine, shelter, dyes, fibers, oils, resins, gums, soaps, waxes, latex, tannins, and insect repellant. Plants and trees, valued for beauty and fragrance, contribute to the air we breathe. People use plants in ceremonial or spiritual rituals. Humans depend upon plants, and their important pollinators, for our existence and survival.
13. Sacred Ground Marker located at Curlew and Belcher Rd. - For thousands of years previous to European conquest, untold generations of indigenous people capably thrived and adapted in environments we can hardly imagine. For thousands of years previous to Europe people capably thrived and adapted in environments we can hardly imagine. A matrilineal society, these "first people* utilized the rich resources of this landscape. Animals and plants were sources for food, medicine, and clothing, Dwellings shelf implements and used sheils to build immense, mounds. They knapped (sculpted) chert and agatized coral into arrow and spear points, knives, and toolt, nove fishing nets from palm toer, and formed clay into vessels for household and reboices uus Ocean A matrilineal society, these "first people" skillfully utilized the rich and Canoes were made trom cypress and pine. Between the tire of "first contact," generally cited as 1513, and the end of the 18 resources of this landscape. Animals and plants were sources for their culture and community life. By the mid-18th century, new natve people, no food, medicine, and clothing. Dwellings constructed from the tall trunks of slash pine had palm fronds for roofing. People crafted shell implements and used shells to build immense mounds. Ocean-going canoes were made from cypress and pine. Between the time of "first contact, generally cited as 1513, and the end of the 18th century, native populations declined to the point of near extinction. The Spanish, English, and French invasions of La Florida eradicated Florida's native people and annihilated their culture and community. By the mid 18 century new native people now identified as the Seminole and Miccosukee Tribes began to move to the peninsular Florida.
14. The Hill Building - located at 1001 Omaha Circle The building is named after a gentleman named Redden B. Hill who came to live here in 1896. Originally from Georgia, he settled first in Lafayette County, Florida where he served as a circuit judge. Mr. Hill constructed the building to face the then standing San Marino Hotel. He opened a general store that offered delivery services mostly to rural areas. Once a week, Mr. Hill would hitch up his horses to his wagon and make his rural deliveries of groceries and dry goods. This historic property was purchased by Geographic Solutions and has been fully renovated.
15. The Old Durrance Building (Witches Brew) located at 1219 Florida Ave. the historic building at built somewhere around the turn of the prior century; some verbal accounts date the building back to the late 1800s. During World War II, the building was used as a Works Projects Administration (WPA) location where it served as a sewing room for the soldiers. WPA was dissolved in 1943. The property had many uses over the years as apartments, offices and a voting precinct. Familiar local people such as Pop Stansell and Charley Jackson also owned the building.
16. 507 11th Street 17. 807 11th Street located in the rear of the beautiful Garden Room.
See some of the History of the Palm Harbor Historic District
