You can thank the Fig Newton for one of St. Petersburg’s first, and most unique neighborhoods. Charles M. Roser, a cookie manufacturer and fig lover from Ohio, developed a machine that could inject fig paste into dough and turn a fig roll into a cookie. The Fig Newton was born. Roser sold his patent, factory and the Fig Newton to a company that would later become Nabisco and headed to Sunshine City in 1910. Roser purchased swamp land and orange groves south of 6th Avenue South and between 4th and 9th Streets, and just on the outskirts of the city began developing his upscale, extremely unique neighborhood in 1911. Surrounded by Indian mounds and picturesque Booker Creek, Roser’s development quickly became a tropical oasis of impressive architectural styles from Bungalows to Tudor Revivals. Roser went on to develop hundreds of homes as well as commercial property on Central Avenue, Mound Park Hospital’s home for nurses and Mercy Hospital – the first hospital for the city’s African American residents. Roser died in 1937 but his legacy lives on. Roser Park, recognized as St. Petersburg’s first historic district, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1998.
Find more historical photos like this one, visit the St. Petersburg Museum of History website at spmoh.com.
