Trail Stops

203 E Silver Springs Blvd, Ocala, FL 34470

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WPZ77vJkgrQGzMKT7

     Ten-year-old Tom Petty met Elvis Presley in the summer 1961 during the filming of "Follow That Dream," shot on location throughout Florida, including downtown Ocala at the then-named Commercial Bank & Trust Co. The introduction was facilitated by Tom's Aunt Evelyne, his mother Kitty's older sister. As luck would have it, Evelyne's husband, Earl Jernigan, owned and operated Jernigan Motion Picture Service ( 3019 NE 20th Way in Gainesville), which helped film companies scout locations -- including for this movie. Uncle Jernigan invited Tom to go here to watch filming and to meet Elvis. When he introduced Tom to him, Elvis briefly nodded and shook his little hand. Tom stood still, stunned and speechless, yet smiling. 

     Afterward, back home in Gainesville, Tom traded his slingshot for Elvis 45s with a friend from the neighborhood, Keith Harben. 

     “Elvis became a symbol of a place Tom Petty wanted to go,” wrote Warren Zanes in Petty: The Biography, published in 2015. 

     Petty himself told Zanes: "I caught the fever that day, and I never got rid of it. That's what kicked off my love of music. And I never thought much about rock 'n' roll until that moment." 

     To learn more about this transformative moment for Tom Petty, read this article from the Gainesville Sun: https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/2007/08/16/young-tom-pettys-life-changed-when-he-met-elvis/31538810007/ 

     To hear Tom talk about what that meant to him at the time, listen to this interview, courtesy of Always Elvis:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9fppHg7E6s 

     And to watch part of the movie's bank scene, filmed inside, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5c0wvNDF6C4

Photo by Shawn Murphy

15096 NW Hwy 225, Reddick, FL 32686

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9Qwk7BuLdCxWLsF78

     Behind the Fairfield Presbyterian Church in Reddick is the Fairfield Community Cemetery where is located the gravesite of William K. Petty, paternal grandfather of Tom Petty. 

William's wife, Sallie L. Petty, is buried, according to the Find a Grate website, in the graveyard behind the Fairfield Baptist Church, which is 1/3rd of a mile south of here.

     Here is the Find a Grave entry for William Petty, including a photograph of the grave marker:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30493277/william_kyler_petty

      William Petty and his wife, Sallie Petty, lived outside of Reddick in a rustic house. Tom Petty recalled visiting his grandparents while a child to Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography. 

     "I'd never seen an outhouse until I saw theirs," Petty told Zanes. "They had a little cornfield next to a tar paper kind of house, up on bricks. I remember newspaper patches on the walls, which struck me as funny, you know? There was a big iron pump that brought water into the kitchen." (pg. 12) Tom Petty's father, Earl, grew up in that house.

      If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite! 

Photo by Shawn Murphy

14855 NW Hwy 225, Reddick, FL 32686

https://maps.app.goo.gl/9ogo7NgpkM93BAMt5

     Fairfield Baptist Church in Reddick is home to the gravesite of Sallie L. Petty, paternal grandmother of Tom Petty, according to the Find a Grave website. However, in an April 2024 trip there, I could see no cemetery adjacent to the church -- so it must be off-site in a location I could not find. 

     Note that according to Warren Zanes' 2015 book, Petty: The Biography, Sallie was Cherokee.

     Sallie Petty's husband, William K. Petty, is buried, according to the Find a Grate website, in the graveyard for Fairfield Presbyterian Church, which is 1/3rd of a mile north of here.

     Here is the Find a Grave entry for Sallie Petty, including a photograph of the grave marker:

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/30494935/sallie_l_petty

     Sallie Petty and her husband, William Petty, lived outside of Reddick in a rustic house. Tom Petty recalled visiting his grandparents while a child . 

     "I'd never seen an outhouse until I saw theirs," Petty told Zanes. "They had a little cornfield next to a tar paper kind of house, up on bricks. I remember newspaper patches on the walls, which struck me as funny, you know? There was a big iron pump that brought water into the kitchen." (pg. 12) Tom Petty's father, Earl, grew up in that house.

     If you are to visit this site, be sure to show reverence. And never, ever desecrate a gravesite! 

Photo by Shawn Murphy

164 SW Mary Ethel Ln, Lake City, FL 32025

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mSXFGc5Sg1etwPJw5

      Once called Columbia County Fairgrounds, the High Springs Tobacco Festival was held here in Lake City on July 14-15, 1972. The lineup featured Mudcrutch (which included future Heartbreakers Tom Petty and Mike Campbell). 

Photo courtesy of Florida Gateway Fairgrounds

4202 E Fowler Ave, Tampa, FL 33620

https://maps.app.goo.gl/SFsrJupdGFZ3yru1A

       William "Red" Slater is a 1981 graduate of the University of South Florida College of Engineering. But in the early 1970s he found himself living on a 10-acre rural parcel of land in northwest Gainesville in a run-down house, where his bedroom was the pantry off the kitchen with no hot water. This eventually became known as Mudcrutch Farm (2203 NW 45th Ave.  in Gainesville). His two roommates were Randall Marsh and Mike Campbell, both of whom became members of the band Mudcrutch, which included future Heartbreakers Campbell, Benmont Tench and Tom Petty. 

     Slater, who was keen on photography and had the cameras and darkroom gear, documented this era on the property that became known as Mudcrutch Farm. Among many other iconic black and white images, he captured a photo of Campbell and Petty meeting for the first time at the farm, when the younger Campbell demonstrated  his talent to Petty -- and earning a spot in Mudcrutch -- by playing Chuck Berry's "Johnny B. Goode" on a Japanese guitar. 

     To learn more about Red Slater, read this University of South Florida alumni office story: https://www.usf.edu/engineering/envision/dec-2017-red-slater.aspx 

Photo by Red Slater, courtesy of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Facebook page

1755 NE 149th St., Miami, FL 33181

https://maps.app.goo.gl/W92fs5z5uMoHd69U6

     Criteria Studios in North Miami is where Mudcrutch recorded the 45 record with "Up in Mississippi" and "Cause Is Understood." It was released in 1973 on Pepper Records, the band's own label. 500 records were pressed.

     To hear that recording, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB-Nb9j1gDc

     To learn about the storied history of this recording studio, check out its website:

https://www.criteriastudios.com/home

     And check out the Wikipedia site for a list of musicians who have recorded here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteria_Studios 

Photo courtesy of YouTube

3400 Gulf Blvd, St Pete Beach, FL 33706

https://maps.app.goo.gl/z3De5hagbecDbrkH7

     Shortly after noon on April 21, 1985, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers performed a 40-minute concert on the rooftop of the Don CeSar Hotel, a pink-colored luxury resort on the white-sand beach in St. Petersburgh, for an audience of MTV documentary producers and cameramen. The publicity stunt for the band's latest album at the time, "Southern Accents," proved too loud for the hotel's security guards who stopped it short.

     To read more about this staged event, see photos and watch a clip from this concert, read this article from The Catalyst:

https://stpetecatalyst.com/a-little-more-don-history-tom-petty-the-heartbreakers/

Photo by John Siebenthaler

2025 9th St So., St. Petersburg, FL 33705

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YJyfBpkp9YUtMpT78

     Now a vacant lot, this is where was once located the C. James Mathews Funeral Home, which also ran an ambulance service. Tom Petty lived and worked here in the summer of 1968. 

     Note that the address of the funeral home at the time was 2025 9th St. South. Because it is an address that no longer exists, I have mapped this as 2019 2025 9th St. South -- an adjacent vacant lot just feet away, in the same block of the street that today is named Dr. M.L.K. St. South.

     After graduating from Gainesville High School, Petty enrolled in an art school in Tampa. But after not attending a single class and on the verge of flunking out, he got a job working the lunch shift at a Tampa barbecue restaurant where he cleaned greasy dishes and swept or mopped the dirty kitchen floors. He lasted nearly two weeks. Petty’s girlfriend at the time, Jan Mathews, who he met at a Dunnellon concert while still in the Epics, managed to get him a job at her father’s funeral home. Despite Mr. Mathews’ dislike of the long-haired hippie from Gainesville, he gave Petty a break – with a little coaxing by Joyce, Jan’s mom. 

    Petty was allowed to live behind the funeral home, above the hearse garage, rooming with some older employees. Petty’s job involved cleaning the limos and hearses, coordinating floral arrangements for ceremonies, and taking photographs of the flowers for a scrap book given to a grieving family. One time, the job included helping to retrieve a corpse to bring back to the funeral home for embalming. This job, along with its living arrangement, would not last long, for one night Petty walked a few miles to the Mathews’ home, snuck into the house and made his way into his girlfriend’s bed. 

    “I was caught sneaking into their house for a little midnight love,” Petty told Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography. “I’d walked all the way there, not that it was unusual for a guy my age looking for that kind of thing. But I was busted there in her bed. And it scared me so bad, I ran out the front door, jumped in the old man’s Lincoln Continental, and drove off. Her father’s car, for Christ’s sake. It had the keys in it, for whatever reason” (pgs. 43-45).

     Petty would soon return to Gainesville and, along with his Epics bandmate Tom Leadon, begin playing with Mudcrutch.

Photo of a pack of matches cover advertising the Mathews ambulance service, courtesy of Ebay

1010 N Macinnes Pl, Tampa, FL 33602

https://maps.app.goo.gl/WoUYtpuPJDSTvsM98     

     Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers made its Florida debut Nov. 24-25, 1976, in a downtown Tampa venue that was once located here, the Performing Arts Centre, according to Setlist. The band’s first album had been released just two weeks before, on Nov. 9. When the band held this concert, they were mostly unknown. After the first three months of the album’s release, it had sold only 6,500 copies and the first single, “Breakdown”, did not chart.    

     The Performing Arts Centre was replaced with what is today known as the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, which opened in 1987.       

     To see the cities and dates of the early concerts, go here: 

 https://www.setlist.fm/search?artist=6bd6e20a&page=2&query=tom+petty&year=1976 

Photo of album cover courtesy of Wikipedia 

6395 N Atlantic Ave, Cape Canaveral, FL 32920

https://maps.app.goo.gl/XKzTNA4S9wrg8NdJ9

    Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers was in its infancy when it played here for two nights, on Dec. 2 and 3, in 1976, at what was then Galaxy Lounge, according to Setlist:

https://www.setlist.fm/search?artist=6bd6e20a&query=tom+petty&year=1976

    Galaxie Lounge, as it was spelled by the proprietor, was in Cape Canaveral, not Cocoa Beach as it is noted in the Setlist entry (Cocoa Beach is just south of Cape Canaveral). Due to its location near the Kennedy Space Center, the nightclub featured a space theme, which included a ceiling with embedded stars, a rocket-shaped phone booth, and bar stools with seat belts. Galaxie Lounge was located inside George’s Steak House. Today there is a dollar store in its footprint.

    The following week the band would play Paul’s Mall in Boston for six shows over three days, Dec. 10-12, serving as the opener for Al Kooper. The Dec. 12 Heartbreakers performances were recorded for a one-sided promotional album by Shelter Records in 1977 titled “Official Live ’Leg”. It was remastered and released in 2009 as part of the deluxe vinyl box set of “The Live Anthology”. The learn more about the official bootleg album, go here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Official_Live_%27Leg

Photo by Joe Doyle, administrator of Cocoa Beach Coastal Community, a Facebook group

5372 Atlantic View, St. Augustine, FL 32080

https://maps.app.goo.gl/iXVih3w3VguhfR3H6

     Once the Crescent Beach vacation home for Tom Petty and his family. In 1991, Tom told journalist Robert Lloyd that the beach home was where he would unwind and relax, perhaps listen to the waves crash on the beach, and do "as little as possible, to sit on the beach and clear my head," as reported in the article "Flying Lessons: Tom Petty takes his bearings," from L.A. Style, October 1991. This article can be found at the author's blog: https://www.houseofhere.com/petty2.html) 

      Should you go here, remember that this private home, located in a residential neighborhood, so must be treated with respect for the property owner and neighbors. This includes never trespassing onto private property!

Photo courtesy of Realtor.com