Another unusual roadside attraction this is located on the University of Tampa.
It doesn’t defy gravity literally, but the anti-gravity monument does take a defiant stand toward what its originator once called “Our Enemy No. 1.”
Gravity was Roger Babson’s nemesis and obsession ever since his sister drowned when he was a teenager. Babson blamed gravity, and when he later became a millionaire businessman he founded the Gravity Research Foundation to find a way to defeat it. He also gave money and stock to over a dozen colleges and universities if they placed one of his inspirational tombstone-like monuments on their campuses. Tampa’s went up in 1965, inscribed “to remind students of the blessings forthcoming when science determines what gravity is, how it works, and how it may be controlled.”
Babson died in 1967 but his monuments remain. Gravity, which makes big rocks too heavy to move, turned out to be his friend after all.
The Tampa Bay Hotel was built by railroad magnate Henry B. Plant between 1888 and 1891. The construction cost over 3 million dollars. It was considered the premier hotel of the eight that Mr. Plant built to anchor his rail line. The hotel itself covers 6 acres and is a quarter-mile long. It was equipped with the first elevator ever installed in Florida.The elevator is still working today, making it one of the oldest continually operational elevators in the nation. The 511 rooms and suites were the first in Florida to have electric lights and telephones. Most rooms also included private bathrooms, complete with a full-size tub. The price for a room ranged from $5.00 to $15.00 a night at a time when the average hotel in Tampa charged $1.25 to $2.00. The poured concrete and steel reinforced structure of the building was advertised as fireproof. It is now home to the University of Tampa.
