gasparill a
LIKE THE MARRIAGE OF MARDI GRAS AND NEW ORLEANS, IT’S A STATE OF MIND
Story by Tom Jackson Gasparilla – Tampa’s 100+ years old celebration - began with a prank during the local 1904 May Day celebration. As the story goes a bevy of horse mounted businessmen, disguised in be-jeweled pirate regalia (rented from New Orleans, of course) came crashing into Tampa’s May Day celebration. Weaving their steeds among the floats of the Floral Parade, the rowdy lot of about 400 — the charter class of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla lead by the legendary Jose Gaspar a/k/a Gasparilla the Pirate King — declared that they had claimed the city for themselves, and would have for their spoils a queen and assorted maidens from among Tampa’s fairest and finest. Week long appearances of the masked marauders culminated in an unmasking at the week’s final and most prestigious ball — where the rapscallions turned out to be, *GASP*, representatives of Tampa’s upper crust. Now, 119 years later, Gasparilla is something almost magical in the life of the city. Reduced to mere numbers, Gasparilla season, stretching from
68 | Winter 2023
the dawn of the new year through mid-March, is an economic powerhouse, generating upwards of $40 million from a string of events visited by roughly 1 million people. In truth, however, Gasparilla is far more than figures on a spreadsheet, or even simply the crown jewel of the city’s busy winter calendar. It has its season, all right - a bustling series of sun-washed fun, games, and culture that surround the main event - the cannons-booming arrival of the good ship Jose Gasparilla II and the boisterous pirate parade on the last Saturday of January. In actuality, Gasparilla’s rascally, seize-the-gusto attitude lasts year round, seasoning Tampa’s culture, adding to the city’s strut, and feeding its saucy personality. Gasparilla lurks, always. So much more than just an interval of money-changing frivolity, like the marriage of Mardi Gras and New Orleans -it’s a state of mind. That’s an impressive legacy for someone who (probably) never existed. Not that any members of Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla would ever admit to such, no matter how much evidence historians pile up. For them, Jose Gaspar, Gasparilla the Pirate King, was the original, genuine Capt. Jack
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