Local Historian Debuts St. Pete Walking-Tour Book

Monica Kile is a household name for many in St. Pete. You may know her from her time as Director of the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at Eckerd College, or perhaps for her work as Executive Director of Preserve the ‘Burg. As a reader you likely have enjoyed her articles in Green Bench Monthly, I Love the ‘Burg, and our own Northeast Journal. You might have seen her running along the waterfront as she trains for yet another marathon, or possibly you know her as Mangrove Bay Middle’s newest librarian. But, most likely, you know her face from the many historic tours she has led within this city over the past 20 years. From walking tours to bus tours, even virtual tours, Monica has regaled locals and tourists with her expert knowledge of St. Pete’s history – and now you can take it home with you. 

I recently had the pleasure of sitting down with Monica, who is also an Old Northeast resident, to discuss her latest accomplishment, a new book, St. Petersburg, Florida: A Walk Through History, which offers eight self-guided walking tours throughout the city. Monica shared inspirations and insights into her creativity as well as some challenges she faced while researching and writing the book.

Tell us about your background and how you came to be a historian and tour guide?

I was born in Fernandina Beach in north Florida and then grew up in Jacksonville. I went to Florida State to study history, but my dad told me there were no jobs in history, so I studied communications, which is useful in that it teaches you to speak in front of people. After college, I moved to Europe and worked at a youth hostel that I had stayed in a few times in Switzerland, and from there, I moved to Berlin, Germany. I needed a job; so, I found one randomly with an English-speaking walking tour company. It opened my eyes to the idea of tour guiding as a profession. After September 11th, I moved home and was working for my dad in oil sales. I was complaining to one of my customers that I hated my job, and he told me that his mom had gone to tour guide school in San Francisco. So, I looked that up and went to The International Tour Management Institute, and it was the best training I’ve ever had. It taught you how to manage groups of people, how to conduct a tour, and how to write a tour. I came home to Jacksonville, and I started working as a tour guide in St. Augustine. I really wanted to be an expert. I don’t like to talk about things that I do not feel confident in, so I decided to get my master’s in history at the University of North Florida. However, I bumped into one of my cousins, Ray Arsenault, at a family event and I told him about my plans and that I was going to study Florida. He asked me if I was willing to relocate because they were starting the Florida Studies program at the University of Southern Florida, St. Pete. I was the first student accepted into the Florida Studies program, and I moved down here in 2003. I fell in love with St. Pete. Ray then introduced me to Peter Belmont, who was with St. Pete Preservation, so that I could start giving tours, and I’ve been doing tours one shape or another ever since.

Who or what influenced you to take up a career in history?

I’ve always loved history, but I would say Ray Arsenault. Honestly, historical architecture is not where my passion is; it’s more the social history. I really like the stories of the people. I love buildings and I do love architecture, but I more love buildings for the stories that they tell. I see a building and can envision it coming to life, and I am going to find out the story behind it. It is so much more interesting to me to know what happened in that building, and it’s a bonus that it happens to be beautiful, but I like the buildings that are not beautiful too. I’m fascinated by these little mundane vernacular buildings because of what happened – The Melrose YMCA is a good example.

What inspired you to create this book, and how have your years of leading walking tours shaped its content?

I was in Jacksonville and I saw a book by this publisher, Reedy Press, and it was a book of scavenger hunts through Jacksonville, which had been something I had been thinking about doing. I went to their website, and they had a page on becoming an author. I went to Tombolo Books here in St. Pete and was talking with one of the owners about that concept and she seemed a little iffy on the scavenger hunt idea, but she told me that people are always looking for maps of what is in the area when they come in here. I knew that Reedy also did a walking tour series and so I reached out and asked them if they would do that instead, and they were amenable to that idea.

My walking tour background made this interesting because when you are doing a walking tour you can pick out the 10 best buildings over the course of a mile and a half. In between those buildings, when you are walking from building A to building B, everyone is just following you. You do not have to do every single building. However, with a book like this you can only skip a couple of buildings. So, I ended up having to delve into a lot of buildings that I did not already know the story of and finding out there are so many cool buildings downtown that we see everyday, but did not know had these whole stories behind them. This was honestly the best part.

How often do you offer local tours? Is there a particular tour you love most?

It is changing because now I am working as teacher – I love being a librarian at Mangrove Bay Middle School. I would say I am giving tours now around once a month. I have really honed my downtown route, which includes the core of downtown and Mirror Lake, but I really love the Waterfront Tour.

Discuss the breakdown of your book. How did you decide which landmarks and/or stories to include?

This was hard, especially on Central Avenue. The publisher gave me a template of eight routes with around 8-15 sites within each route, so there was a formula. The blurbs for the sites were supposed to be around 120 words each; I am very verbose, so that part was quite challenging. I gave them a manuscript which they had me cut down significantly. What really became challenging was the route that is on Central. The route almost makes a lollipop. You go all the way around first block and then straight up Central Avenue. As I was moving up Central Avenue I would, almost for my own edification, want to know what every single building was, and every building along Central, to me, was something interesting. There are all these fascinating stories, so cutting a building out was harder than finding which buildings I would include, and I ended up not including some that I really liked. It is the same on a tour; the tour would be four hours if I told you everything I knew, because I find the stories so interesting I want to share every detail.

What was the most surprising or unusual discovery you made while researching St. Pete’s history?

The story of the three sisters that started the St. Petersburg Federal Savings and Loan Association on Central Avenue. That was one of my favorites. I was also surprised at how many buildings had skins added to them in the 1960s. The Municipal Services Center on 4th Street North, across from the Snell Arcade is probably the best remaining example of this in St. Pete. The skin on it today is covering the original building. (You can see the original building on page 17 of the book.) Adding the skins was done to modernize and defer maintenance. 

Your book highlights St. Pete’s evolution from “God’s Waiting Room” to a thriving urban center. What do you think was the turning point in that transformation?

This was another big discovery for me. I don’t think Florida Power gets enough credit for their reinvestment downtown in the late 80s/early 90s. Florida Power was the electric company that started near the founding of the city. They had moved out of downtown in the 50s or 60s, and then in the late 80s/early 90s they needed to change their headquarters and began looking throughout the state, as they were bigger than just St. Pete, but they decided to reinvest in downtown St. Pete. At that point they had a holding company called Florida Progress who came in and redid an area downtown. It’s a really complicated, but interesting story, that most people don’t know about, but I credit Florida Power’s reinvestment and coming back downtown as the start. Other things – allowing sidewalk dining, changing our one-way streets to two-way streets, more residential housing downtown – all contributed.

What do you think is the place of architectural history in our culture? What is its relevance?

I think what people often don’t get about the architecture in St. Pete is that it was really an architecture of leisure. The Medieval Revival architecture that was so prevalent in the 20s was designed to make you feel like you were on vacation, to make you feel like you were in this fantasy land – a place of relaxation and perpetual fun. So that tells you something about St. Pete and about St. Pete’s history. Another thing I don’t think people realize is that everywhere you turn downtown was at one point a hotel or a rooming house of some sort. Some of them are mundane looking buildings, but they were built to support our tourism industry. So really, the architecture of St. Pete tells you everything about St. Pete’s history. You really cannot go past three buildings without bumping into something that was related to tourism. I don’t think we identify as a tourist city anymore, even though in many ways, we still are, but that is how the city was developed, and the architecture of the remaining buildings tell that story if you are willing to delve a little bit into it. 

What story or landmark in the book do you personally find most meaningful and why?

I find the story of Palm Plaza in Tour Number Three to be incredibly poignant. The building was commissioned by Charles Schuh, Jr. as a law office he was to share with his father. Before construction could begin, Schuh, Jr. was murdered by the disgruntled former husband of a client. It was a tragic story as Schuh was a dedicated public servant, very Kennedy-esque. His father continued the construction of the building in tribute to his son.

What is the role of storytelling in preserving and sharing our city’s history?

I think storytelling is crucial for preserving the city’s history. Stories are what connect us as human beings, they are what make us care about other people and places. After learning the story of the Schuh building, you look at it in a whole new light. It was designed by William Harvard, one of our most prominent mid-century architects. When I look at it, I see both the optimism of the post-war period, and the tragedy associated with it. It just tells so many stories and makes me love the building more.

Were there any challenges you faced while uncovering or verifying historical details for the book?

I encountered remarkably few problems, largely because newspaper coverage was so robust during the eras when most of our downtown buildings were built (the 1920s and 1950s) and there are great digital resources like Sanborn maps and property cards available as well. It was pretty easy to find verification of most of the details and even uncover some fun stories along the way.

What advice would you give someone who wants to explore and connect with history of their own city?

Get a Newspapers.com subscription. We are particularly lucky in St. Petersburg to have had two robust newspapers for much of our history (the St. Petersburg Times and the Evening Independent.) There are so many wonderful stories one can uncover by reading old newspapers.

Do you have plans to expand on this book? 

I’d love to do a follow up featuring routes in some of our historic neighborhoods and farther out Central Avenue in areas like Grand Central and the Edge District. We’ll have to see how well this first one does!

What are you reading now? Do you have a favorite author?

I read a lot of narrative non-fiction. I love Erik Larsen and just finished his latest book on Fort Sumter. Before that I read a book about the theft of the Mona Lisa back in 1911. I also love memoirs, biographies, and autobiographies. I’m reading an autobiography of Julie Andrews that I picked up at a thrift store at the moment. Now that I work in a middle school library, I always have something at my fingertips…I didn’t appreciate how much I would enjoy books meant for middle schoolers! I recently finished a series called, The City of Ember, which are some of the best books I’ve read in a long time, and they’re meant for 5-8th graders!

On top of being a historian, tour guide, and author, you are also a librarian, avid runner, and a wife and mother of two. What does a typical day look like for you?

I definitely like to stay busy. I wake up at 4:50 am and usually run eight miles on a weekday (longer on the weekends.) I start work at 9:10 and leave at 4:30 and the evenings are usually spent working on homework with my kids or attending a school performance or something of that sort. I don’t drink anymore, and I found it remarkable how much more time there seemed to be in the day when I gave up alcohol! Best decision I ever made.

How have you been able to incorporate your love of history, architecture, and our city into your students’ lives?

I just finished a project with my students called “Future Cities” where we had to design a city of the future. I was amazed how interested they were in discussions of things like zoning, affordable housing, etc. I have found that, on both tours and in a school, if you are passionate about the topic, people will generally catch your enthusiasm and become engaged as well.

What is your favorite thing about St. Pete?

The public waterfront. I spend countless hours running there and I love to see all the activity that takes place there. So many parties, picnics, sports, not to mention wildlife…I constantly see dolphins, rays, sharks. I’ve seen some crazy things too…. including a dead guy sitting upright on one of the benches. By the time I looped back around, he’d been covered with a sheet and the morgue was there to pick him up! But mostly it’s happy, live people, enjoying the incredible asset we are so fortunate to have.

Find more about Monica and her tours at monicakile.com.