Bel-Mar Shores
The deed to this neighborhood was signed on the battlefield during a clash between France and Germany! In 1910, Kentuckian TC Hammond became convinced that Bel-Mar would one day be Tampa’s most important address, so he talked a group of French businessmen into financing its development. The operation was getting underway when WWI broke out, forcing the Frenchmen to withdraw. To buy them out, Hammond sent a blank deed overseas to a French banker, who in turn dispatched a messenger to the front to collect the businessmen’s signatures! The messenger made it back to the bank, the banker shipped the deed to Tampa, and the rest is history.