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 a reporter 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 blog of the reporter, Robert Lloyd: https://www.houseofhere.com/petty.html 

    In this profile, 40-year-old Tom Petty talks about his career, his family, and how much he enjoyed being here along St. Augustine Beach. The reporter walks with Petty down the street by the beach houses surrounding his property. He talks about his neighbors, noting where they work and what their work schedule is. He points out the house of a neighbor who the day before had introduced herself to him, bringing him a large homemade cookie. And he talks about how his youngest daughter, Kim, benefits from “a terrific sense of independence” she gets from riding her bicycle along the sidewalk-less street.

    Petty noted that school field trips initially brought him to historic downtown St. Augustine, then as a teen he’d make the trip to surf off the beach. In the 1991 profile, centered around this beach house, he’s fishing or riding a Little Honda 50 scooter, which he notes was “not very macho at all,” along the beach at low tide – “probably never (exceeding) twenty-five miles an hour.”

    About St. Augustine, he told the reporter: It’s kind of charming. It hasn’t been ruined like Orlando yet. Last night I was in a restaurant and I told the waitress, ‘I want French fries with this.’ She goes, ‘Well, you know, it’ll be another twenty-five cents if you order it that way – but you could do it this way and save the twenty-five cents.’"

    The restaurant being discussed was the Seaview Cafe, one of his frequented spots. The reporter describes it as “a regulation beach-strip shrimp house, with a low-ceilinged dining room approached through a low-ceilinged bar.” 

    The reporter talks about how Petty, and the locals, deal with his fame while here.

    “A few of the few heads present turn Petty’s way,” he wrote. “Even in this familiar, out-of-the-way place, he seems painfully conscious of wearing a famous face. ‘It can be an awfully long walk through that bar,’ he sighs.”

    Petty talks about observing the shrimpers stopping by at night after docking their boats.

    “It gets pretty colorful,” Petty told the reporter. “I always enjoy that as long as I don’t have to get drawn into the middle of it.” 

     A fellow Gainesville musician who to me referred to himself as “a close friend of Tommy’s,” which I can confirm he was, vacationed in a beach house about a mile to the south of here. He fondly remembered hanging out with Petty here in the early 1990s.

    “In the early-nineties one summer, my vacation at our beach house coincided with his being at his beach house about a mile north,” he told me. “He looked like any other local guy, with a beard, cutoffs and flip flops; shades and a tee shirt with a baseball cap – truly anonymous, but also because nobody was looking around for him in St. Augustine Beach. We rode small mopeds he had, and ate at a local seafood shack run by an older woman who had no idea who he was. It was a cool time.”

    This friend elaborated on the need for privacy while being famous, and how this was important to Tom Petty. And he recalled relaxed conversations he had with his friend.

    “The reason I am so protective about TP is that he was an extremely private person off-stage and off-tour, and I don’t want any part in presenting his non-professional life events. I also understand the public’s craving for that”, this friend explained in an email to me. “Because he really was that guy, on stage and off, not a pose. He was also funny as hell, with an indescribably dry sense of humor. It wasn’t so much the content but the delivery style that made it so funny – often portraying a guy who is dumb but thinks he’s funny. And the funny part is that the guy thinks he’s funny, and that makes you laugh. And...and...well, ya see what I mean?”

    Despite Tom Petty’s wish to be anonymous while off the concert stage, he was seen – as was the case here along Crescent Beach. There are numerous reports of sightings along this stretch of beach, yet most people who recognized him seem to have respected his privacy and respectfully let him be. In a Facebook discussion thread for the St. Augustine News from 2021, many claimed to have seen him in the 1980s and 1990s. Didi Bowman was one, as reportedly was her sister.

    “I worked at Dominos and I delivered to him many times,” Bowman wrote. “He actually requested me frequently because I pretended to not know who he was. My little sister worked at the Publix on the island and once he walked in and was mobbed by fans so he turned around and ran out. He was very private but very kind and funny and a great tipper, of course!”

    There is also a report of a Pizza Hut delivery. Natasha Casad-Best said she worked at a downtown franchise, while her husband worked at one along Rt. 312.

    “When my husband and I were working for Pizza Hut, we each ended up delivering to Tom Petty,” she wrote. “I delivered first to his beach house and didn’t realize who I had delivered to. My husband delivered to him the next week at his friend’s house. My husband told me later that Tom Petty had been the one to give me my awesome tip I’d gotten the previous week. They had a good laugh together before my husband had to leave.”

    Patti Olsen reported that she saw Petty in 1994 at a retail store that was on San Marco Street in downtown St. Augustine.

    “Sold him T-shirts and funky hats at Insanitee’s,” she wrote. “Told him I saw him a few years prior in Atlanta. His reply, ‘It’s all a blur.’”

    Brandy Grohowski Baker’s father and grandfather owned Tom’s Fruit and Gifts, a gift shop at 1812 Rt. A1A South in St. Augustine, which was open from 1970 until its 2022 closing. She reported that Petty would often stop by there.

    “He used to go into my dad and grandpa’s shop all the time back in the day and buy the best fresh squeezed OJ you’ve ever had,” she wrote.

    Mimi Hollister and Kim Hartwick both reported seeing Petty driving in a sports car around St. Augustine Beach. Hollister said she saw him at a red light at the intersections of Routes AIA and 312, while Hartwick said she saw him near her home on Medoras Avenue.

    Alison Lee reported that Petty “quietly paid for my gas once at the Handy Way in Crescent Beach when I was 16,” adding, “He was gone in a flash. Never got to say thank you.”

    Missy Playford reported that she saw Petty while working at a restaurant near his beach house.

    “He used to frequent Seaside Restaurant on A1A, just a few blocks from his home, in the early ’90s. I worked there,” she wrote. “He was always polite, but I always respected his privacy. The place since has changed ownership and is something else.”

    Sean Richardson reported: “Met him in front of his house right as he was getting off his tour bus. Very nice guy.”

    Frank Sladish, Jr., who lived six houses from the Petty beach house, regularly saw him in the middle-to-late 1980s.

    “We would run into him often and were able to enjoy hanging out with him from time to time when he was in town,” he wrote. “Really nice, down to earth guy.”

    Rebecca Hill reported that her children “ran into him on the beach one day,” leaving them “pretty stoked.”

    Chris Muskett said he was walking the beach one day and heard Petty playing guitar at his beach house.

    “I grew up just down A1A and I would ride my bike down the beach,” he wrote. “One day I heard this guitar, looked up and this dude with long hippie hair was just jamming out on his deck. Me being the extrovert that I am, walked up the boardwalk. He finished his song, I introduced myself. He let me listen to a few more songs and then very politely told me to go. It was getting dusk and I was only 12. One and only time I ever heard him out there.”

    Chris Wooten reported that his neighbor a couple miles south of Petty’s beach house, who was Petty’s sound engineer, had “a photo album with over 400 pics of Tom on Crescent Beach,” although “he is pretty private with what he shares.”

    Jeanna King reported that her friends, who lived in Marineland, a town not far south of Crescent Beach that is home to a dolphin adventures business, saw Tom and Jane Benyo Petty “frequent there back in the ’80s.”

    Sue Harris reported “seeing him riding back and forth” down Route A1A on a scooter.

    Robin Bokur-Lambert, a neighbor, often saw him riding a scooter down the street.

    “I lived across the street from him on the beach and he always rode the scooter up and down Atlantic View with his youngest daughter,” she wrote. “He was always super nice.”

    Daniel Bordeaux reported that he recalls Petty riding a scooter to a Jiffy convenience store along Crescent Beach to purchase lottery tickets.

    Diane Smith reported that her husband ran into Petty at the Crescent Beach Jiffy and that he was a “very low-key, humble guy.”

    “He held the door open for him at that Jiffy with that smile of his,” she wrote. “When my husband did a double take – he realized it was Tom Petty – (and) he was gone.”

    Some years later, the Smiths ended up buying one of the scooters owned by the Pettys. They purchased a red 1992 Honda Elite Scooter, adorned with a peace sign sticker, through a  next door neighbor who rented his house to exchange students. When the two exchange students finished up their studies at Flagler College in St. Augustine to return home to Denmark, the Smiths bought it from the students for $150. It came with original ownership records, a title and registration, noting that it had once belonged to Tom Petty and Jane Benyo Petty, whose permanent address was noted to be in California.

    In October 2021, a website for an online auction house called Gotta Have Rock and Roll put this scooter up for auction. The minimum bid required was $5,000; it was noted to be valued at between $15,000 and $20,000. Two bids were made before the auction closed. To see this, go here:

https://gottahaverockandroll.com/Tom_Petty_Owned___Heavily_Used_1992_Honda_Elite_Sc-LOT39878.aspx

    Evidently, the Smiths retained ownership of the scooter following that auction. In June 2023, Diane Smith went on an AXS-TV program called Rock My Collection, which appraises and auctions memorabilia. An appraiser on the program valued it in the $12,000 to $15,000 range. Part of that episode can be watched here:

https://www.facebook.com/100064541090501/videos/286311583857308/?__so__=watchlist&__rv__=video_home_www_playlist_video_list 

    In March 2025, Diane Smith informed me that the Smiths still owned this scooter.

    As a footnote about this scooter, I share the following report from the Facebook discussion thread for the St. Augustine News from 2021, which centered around this scooter.

    “That’s the scooter he got stuck on the beach and my dad had to go dig it out for him,” Rhyannon Erskine wrote. “My dad did the work on his beach house, built all the custom closets too. Tom was pretty awesome.”

    To read the noted Facebook discussion thread, go here:

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ABkr4QCDz/

     There is a widely circulated photo of Tom Petty wearing a t-shirt from the St. Augustine Alligator Farm, located at 999 Anastasia Blvd., a long-running attraction dating back to 1893, which he undoubtedly bought while visiting during one of his vacations here. This photo was taken atop the Don CeSar resort on St. Petersburg Beach, likely in 1985 when the Heartbreakers performed live atop the beachfront hotel for an MTV documentary. In this photo he looks directly at the camera, and offers a warm smile that makes him looks completely at peace.

     This Zillow listing for the Crescent Beach house showed that as of February 2025 this house was on the market, billed as "Tom Petty’s Former Oceanfront Retreat":  

https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/5372-Atlantic-Vw-Saint-Augustine-FL-32080/47771611_zpid/ 

      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 Zillow

1720 US Hwy 1 S. Saint Augustine, FL 32084

https://maps.app.goo.gl/DV9zeLJmThLfxFkA8 

    From Tom Petty’s beach house on Crescent Beach in St. Augustine, which served as his anonymous retreat from fame, he could drive to the nearest Sonny’s BBQ franchise in 13 minutes where he could satisfy his craving for BBQ beans and ribs from the restaurant that originated in his hometown of Gainesville.

    A fellow Gainesville musician who referred to himself to me as “a close friend of Tommy’s,” which I can confirm he was, vacationed in a beach house about a mile to the south of Petty’s beach house. He talked about how Petty enjoyed eating comfort food while seeking comfort off the treadmill of constantly being recognized by the public.

    “When at his beach house Tommy also ate at the St. Augustine location (of Sonny’s BBQ),” Petty’s close friend told me. “I went there in the mid-nineties, and they had an autographed order receipt pinned to the bulletin board next to the cashier. It was eventually stolen – duhh – but I clearly remember it.”

    Petty’s close friend recalled an earlier visit to their respective St. Augustine beach houses.

    “In the early-nineties one summer, my vacation at our beach house coincided with his being at his beach house about a mile north,” he told me. “He looked like any other local guy, with a beard, cutoffs and flip flops; shades and a tee shirt with a baseball cap – truly anonymous, but also because nobody was looking around for him in St. Augustine Beach. We rode small mopeds he had, and ate at a local seafood shack run by an older woman who had no idea who he was. It was a cool time.”

    Note that this St. Augustine location of Sonny’s BBQ is now a vacant lot. It was still open as late as 2018, as there was this news coverage of founder Sonny Tillman visiting it:

https://www.staugustine.com/story/lifestyle/2018/05/30/barbecue-master-visits-st-augustine-location/12107322007/

    But by 2023 the building and lot had sold for $2 million. Here is the real estate listing for that property:

https://www.coldwellbankerhomes.com/fl/saint-augustine/1720-us-hwy-1-s/pid_53035888/ 

    By 2025, the building was razed, as one can see in Google Maps. It was located at 1720 U.S. Highway 1 South in St. Augustine. 

Photo by Masen Sharpe