Trail Stops

Intersection of SW 3rd Ave. and SW 9th St., Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/s21UXDNnoUZe5wM67

     Site of historical marker for Alachua General Hospital, which was once located here. Here, on Oct. 20, 1950, was born Thomas Earl Petty – or Tom Petty, the Gainesville native and future Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee. 

     Son of Katherine Johey “Kitty” (Avery) Petty and Earl Alvin Petty, the Pettys resided then at 1040 NE 9th St., Tom Petty’s first home. 

     In 2010, the 81-year-old hospital was demolished. 

     Today the marker is located in Florida Innovation Square at the University of Florida. To learn more about the historic hospital and its marker, go here:

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=93167  

Photo by Tim Fillmon, courtesy of Historical Marker Database.

1040 NE 9th St, Gainesville, FL 32601

https://maps.app.goo.gl/pMUpCux8qgMoKWZ7A

     This house, which was built in 1947, is where Earl and Kitty Petty, parents to Tom Petty, lived when Tom was born Oct. 20, 1950. The family moved to the childhood home at 1715 NE 6th Terrace after it was built in 1952. 

     Should you go here, remember that this private home, located in a residential neighborhood, must be treated with respect for the property owners and neighbors. 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1715 NE 6th Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/jGiFJNDVgT5YxWj29

     Childhood home for Tom and Bruce Petty, his younger brother. Built in 1952. (Note that Tom's first house when he was born in 1950 was at 1040 NE 9th St., which was built in 1947.) 

     It was in this house on the night of Feb. 9, 1964, when 14-year-old Tom Petty, along with 73 million other people, watched The Beatles perform five songs on the Ed Sullivan Show. Tom watched this national broadcast on the Petty family's new color TV, something new and special at the time. Tom's neighborhood friend Keith Harben was there to watch that night.

     Reflecting back about that night, he would tell Peter Bogdanovich for the 2007 documentary "Runnin' Down a Dream: "It all became clear. This is what I'm gonna do, and this is how you do it."

     In 1964, Tom formed his first band, The Sundowners, in the living room. Keith Harben helped to set up the band's equipment, a practice he continued for the band's duration.  Keith recalled to me that one day he was told that he could sing a little bit of a song to see how he was, which was when he was told, "maybe you'd want to be the band manager."

     Once the band lineup was set, they would rehearse cover tunes in a backyard shed with carpeted walls. They would eventually perform at high schools and university fraternity houses -- driven there by another bandmember's mother in a station wagon. Moreover, for each of the four members, she also sewed stage outfits: pink jackets with ruffled white shirts and tight black pants -- British Invasion-style.

     In late 1967, at age 16, Tom Petty left The Sundowners to play bass guitar with The Epics, a band that eventually included Tom Leadon on lead guitar.

     It was at this house that Tom Leadon met Tom Petty, both of whom would later become members of Mudcrutch. The 14-year-old Leadon, who lived a few blocks away (with his older brother Bernie, a future member of the Eagles), would walk to Petty's house for near-daily band rehearsals for years.

     "I was fascinated with Petty," wrote Leadon, a founding member of Mudcrutch, in an overview of his upbringing in Gainesville and the city's music scene at the time: http://www.gainesvillerockhistory.com/TLeadon.htm 

     Tom's first wife, Jane, purchased the house, which has three bedrooms and two bathrooms -- including one that still has pink-tiled walls from when Tom lived here -- for $175,000 in 2019 following reports that it might be turned into a museum, according to the Gainesville Sun article below. 

https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2019/09/04/tom-pettys-ex-wife-buys-rockstars-childhood-home/2563279007/

     "I thought we should have it in the family," said Jane Benyo Petty, who noted that eventually it would be passed on to their grandchildren. 

     Before Jane Benyo Petty purchased this home in 2019 so that it would remain in the Petty family, superfans Kevin Beauchamp from California and Joanne Davis from New York were interested in purchasing Tom Petty's childhood home, getting it recognized as an historical landmark, and turning it into a museum. To make this financially and logistically possible, they had worked with Jeff Goldstein, a producer of the Rose Community-produced Mudcrutch shows in and around Gainesville in the early 1970s and today the president of the Gainesville Music History Foundation. To learn more about this effort, read this Gainesville Sun article:

https://www.gainesville.com/story/news/local/2019/06/11/up-for-sale-tom-pettys-childhood-home/4932139007/ 

     This private home, located in a residential neighborhood, has since been rented. Should you visit here, be respectful of this property and neighborhood. Be sure not to be like the unknown knucklehead who stole the mailbox in 2019!

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

312 NW 16th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601

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     Sidney Lanier Elementary School was Tom Petty’s first school. 

     Today it is the site of a mural in his honor, which was painted by Gainesville artist Jesus Martinez and his wife, according to this report by WUFT, Gainesville's NPR station:

https://www.wuft.org/education/2018-03-19/center-for-students-with-disabilities-uses-gardening-creativity-to-teach

     Note that today this is a school for children with special needs. You cannot just walk onto the school property. The mural is located on the end of one of the buildings, facing east. There is a fence along NW 2nd Street. You can take a photograph from the sidewalk alongside the fence.

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1901 NE 9th St, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/Sbh7kbXHbQfQzVjd8

     Howard W. Bishop Middle School was Tom Petty’s junior high school, which was built in 1962. 

     It is where Tom attended grades 7-9. Tom Petty's childhood friend Keith Harben recalls that he and Tom planted grass in front of the school, a job that came about through a friend of theirs whose father was the principal.

     This school, attended during Petty's coming-of-age years, also becomes a cornerstone for his career as a musician and lyricist.

     This is the site of Tom Petty's first concert with The Sundowners in the school cafeteria in 1964, or which we may have Cindy Crawford (not the actress) to thank here. 14-year-old Tom, who had a crush on Cindy and was looking to impress, quickly assembled the band when she asked him whether he knew a band that could perform at the school dance. He bluffed and said "yes," then grabbed his bass guitar and immediately started forming a band with his friends. 

    About this middle school crush, Tom Petty recalled it to Warren Zanes for the 2015 book Petty: The Biography. 

     "I found this one beautiful girl, Cindy, the prettiest girl there, and she showed some interest in me," Petty said. "I probably made more of it than she did, probably thought it was more real than she did. I imagine every guy she met wanted to take her out. But I still remember the day that it hit me that we weren't an item like I thought we were. It was traumatic for me. I remember the walk home, just feeling ... I got my heart broken." (pg. 30)

    Cindy Crawford would re-emerge in Petty’s life years later. In 1968 after flunking out of art school in Tampa and no longer working at the funeral home in St. Petersburg, Tom returned to Gainesville where one night he tried LSD for the first time at a get-together of friends, reunited with Cindy, and laid the foundation for lyrics he would pen years later. 

    When Cindy showed up at this gathering, Tom, who was in an enlightened state of mind and still had her on his mind, chatted her up.

    “It was greater than great, a huge night for me,” Petty told Zanes (pg. 46).

    That night the gathering’s attendees would smoke cigarettes on the apartment roof and venture out to an area west of town where I-75 construction was ongoing. There, below a highway overpass, they gleefully tried to outdo one another by skipping stones across a small pool of water. They then headed back to town and partied through the night. 

    While any chance of Tom and Cindy becoming an item was dashed in the morning when she told him, “you and me isn’t going to happen” (Zanes, pg. 47), the night did become a lyrical catalyst for a song on the 1979 “Damn the Torpedoes” album by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. 

    “When I wrote ‘Even the Losers’ years later, that night came back. I obsessed over her so much. She is probably in a lot of songs.” (Zanes, pg. 47) You can see that night in Tom Petty’s lyrics:

“Well, it was nearly summer we sat on your roof

Yeah, we smoked cigarettes and we stared at the moon

And I showed you stars you never could see

Babe, it couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me

Baby, time meant nothing anything seemed real

Yeah, you could kiss like fire and you made me feel

Like every word you said was meant to be

It couldn’t have been that easy to forget about me…

Two cars parked on the overpass

Rocks hit the water like broken glass

I should of known right then it was too good to last

God, it’s such a drag when you live in the past

Baby, even the losers

Get lucky sometimes

Even the losers

Keep a little bit of pride”

    Here you can listen to the song: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Ue4_MWwKY8  

     Years, later, Tom wrote "The Best of Everything" for the 1985 album "Southern Accents" by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. The song reportedly was about Cindy -- looking back, two decades on. Here is part of that lyric:     

"So listen, honey 

Wherever you are tonight 

I wish you the best of everything in the world

And honey, I hope you found 

Whatever you were looking for" 

     Marsha Danielson, a platonic friend of Tom's from his neighborhood, recalled for me various memories she has of walking to and from this middle school with Tom Petty.  

     "Tommy met me as we walked to Howard Bishop Junior High," she said. "Tommy was in ninth grade; I was in eighth. About one block's distance north of the school, we stopped to talk about the show. Tommy already had the album 'Meet the Beatles'. He said sarcastically to me, 'So I suppose your favorite Beatle is Paul McCartney.' I said, 'No, my favorite Beatle is George Harrison.' He was clearly surprised and asked me why. I said, 'Because I think he is most into the music.' Tommy thought about that and then said, 'I think so, too.'"

     Marsha also recalled two instances that showed was a kind soul Tom Petty was.

     She said: "Tommy carried my books between classes, not because I was his girlfriend (we were just friends). He did it because he was a gentleman and thought it was the nice thing to do."

     And she recalled the following to me about Tom's calming effect: "At the end of my first class of Geometry, the teacher cited the Pythagorean Theory. As I walked out the door, looking like a deer in the headlights, Tommy was waiting for me. He asked me what was wrong. I told him what the teacher just said, and Tommy laughed. He told me not to let it scare me, that geometry is just a game with puzzles. You get clues to figure out the rest of the shape, and when you finish the puzzle, you win. I never again had math anxiety and realized I could apply his words to everything in life."

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

2424 NW 23rd Blvd, Gainesville, FL 32605

https://maps.app.goo.gl/2RGxYqsNcnGShtSe7

     While today you will find Elks Lodge No. 990 at this address, hidden behind the building is the former Glen Springs Pool, which closed in 1970. Tom Petty's mom, Kitty, would bring him here during his childhood. It is part of the  "Dreamville" song lyric from the 2002 album "The Last DJ" -- although one could wonder whether the year-round 72-degree water was so cold it turns lips blue: 

"Ridin' with my mama 

To Glen Springs Pool 

The water was cold 

My lips were blue 

There was rock and roll 

Across the dial 

When I think of her 

It makes me smile 

Like it was Dreamville 

A long time ago 

A million miles away 

All the trees were green 

In Dreamville" 

     Today the staff of the Elks Lodge does its best with limited resources to maintain the historic pool, which was built in stages, starting in the late 1920s . Members of the Elks Lodge clean the pool periodically throughout the year, as a sense of pride, they said. After a heavy rain washed sand from nearby development into the spring pool, they tediously removed all of the sand from this pool. In different sections of the pool today you can find turtles, fish and crawfish. 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

Northeast Park, Gainesville, FL 32609

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     Former Northeast Park is where Tom and friends played as children. It was renamed Tom Petty Park Oct. 20, 2018, what would have been Tom's 68th birthday. The City of Gainesville videorecorded the unveiling ceremony, where you can watch here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbwl5tVZ9go 

     Tom Petty Park is also the site of the Tom Petty Historical Marker, unveiled Oct. 13, 2024. To learn more about the dedication ceremony attendees for the state of Florida marker, see this Visit Gainesville page: 

https://www.visitgainesville.com/event/dedication-ceremony-for-the-tom-petty-state-historic-marker/

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

Northeast Park, Gainesville, FL 32609

https://maps.app.goo.gl/k2kRXR4JeQMyhoK16

     On the NE 16th Avenue side (the north side) of Tom Petty Park is the site of Petty Pitch Parks: three baseball fields with dugout benches inscribed with Tom Petty’s name. 

Photo by Shawn Murphy.

1224 NE 5 Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32601 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/f4AjiZ9637YUCkgp7

     Tom Petty Park is the site of the Tom Petty Historical Marker, which was unveiled Oct. 13, 2024. The state of Florida marker is located on the south side of the park, near the Tom Petty Dog Park, at the intersection of NE 13th Avenue and NE 5th Terrace.

     Speakers for the marker unveiling were: Harvey Ward, mayor of Gainesville; Jeff Goldstein, president, chair and founder of the Gainesville Music History Foundation; Melanie Barr, a Gainesville historian and co-director of the Gainesville Music History Foundation; Mike Boulware, co-director of the Gainesville Music History Foundation; and Bruce Petty, Tom Petty’s brother.

     Danny Roberts, an original member of Mudcrutch, was a guest speaker. He talked about the Jeff Goldstein-promoted farewell concert to the band in 1974 at Westside Park that raised the gas money for the band to drive to California with the dream of making it big.

     Note that Westside Park is located 3.5 miles west of here. You can learn more about this Mudcrutch concert site and navigate to it by going to the "Teen Years: Spoiled & Mistreated" section of Trail Stops on this website.  

      And Roberts talked about the Church Studio recordings in Tulsa for Shelter Records, which yielded songs that were on the first Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers album in 1976, after Mudcrutch had disbanded. 

     To learn more about the Church Studio recordings, go here:

https://thechurchstudio.com/tom-pettys-journey-at-the-church-studio/

     Bruce Petty, the final speaker, got emotional while talking about "Tommy," who was "a good brother." 

     "I miss my brother every day," Bruce said before immediately sobbing, bending over to brace himself with hands on knees, before standing up and continuing, "I wish we were together every day, sipping another beer, listening to music." 

     He reminisced about family reunions at which their children and grandchildren were all together. And he talked about Tom's legacy.

     "His music continues to touch people," he said. "Everywhere I go, I hear his music," listing places he had recently heard Tom Petty's music played or performed. "His music really touches people. It's such a great legacy that he can leave us all this amazing music that will carry on forever -- and I can't ask for anything better than that."

     To watch the full marker dedication ceremony, captured by Vicki Bordeaux, on Facebook, go here:

https://www.facebook.com/100000037907570/videos/866195695637143/ 

Or on YouTube, go here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvOwqVn4o7k

Photo of front of marker by Dan Spiess.

 100-198 NE 4th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601 

https://maps.app.goo.gl/QRc44BaQ3yPgKzqt6

      The Burt Ames Scout Cabin is where neighborhood childhood friends Tom Petty and Keith Harben were campmates at overnight mini-retreats for their Boy Scout Troop 84, Falcon Patrol. 

Photo courtesy of current Scouts BSA Troop 21, Gainesville.

2513 Doctors Lake Dr, Orange Park, FL 32073

https://maps.app.goo.gl/qc2gWcsHCURNb7oh7

     This Orange Park, Florida, property on Doctors Lake, an offshoot of the St. John's River, is owned by the Boys Scouts of America. It was once the location of a two-week summer Boy Scout retreat at Camp Echockotee attended by two young children who were neighborhood friends from Gainesville. Their names were Tom Petty and Keith Harben, who were representing Troop 84, Falcon Patrol. They stayed together in a tent with cots. The boys had been warned to be aware of rabid racoons. One night, as Keith recounted to me, he and Tom started screaming when they thought one of these racoons had made its way into their tent. It turned out to be a stray dog, about which they got a good laugh. Keith also recalled how homesick they were -- and how thrilled they were when their moms visited them one day. 

Photo courtesy of Florida Memory, State Library and Archives of Florida.