Hostel's History Exalted

By JANIS D. FROELICH The Tampa Tribune

Published: Sep 15, 2007

TAMPA - Much is special about the Jackson House, a former downtown boarding house.

Built in 1901, the dwelling hosted musical stars including Ella Fitzgerald, Chick Webb, Cab Calloway, Ray Charles and James Brown. The performers appeared in the numerous nightclubs on Central Avenue during the black business district's heyday from 1900 to 1960.

Now the boarding house is among the few buildings important to Tampa's black community to be honored by the Washington-based National Register of Historic Places.

"The national listing is one that certainly calls attention to a property on a grand scale," said Barbara Mattick, deputy state historic preservation officer in Tallahassee.

On Thursday, Willie Robinson Jr. will receive a commendation from the Tampa City Council honoring how he has carried out the vision for the boarding house he inherited from his mother. He also will be cited by Tampa Preservation for the two-story residence making the National Register, with a plaque later to be presented to Robinson at the house, 851 Zack St.

"I really wanted the whole city to enjoy this," Robinson said of his appearance before the council.

Tampa has 67 National Register listings, including neighborhoods such as Ybor City and West Tampa, Mattick said. There is no state listing system.

National recognition can be crucial as property owners seek government grants for repairs and renovation, but it's local recognition that offers protection from bulldozers.

"The local review is the only one that has any teeth," Mattick said.

In September 2003, the Jackson House achieved local historical status. This was sweet timing, Robinson said, because his mother was alive.

Sarah Jackson Robinson died in summer 2006. Since then, her son has been determined to preserve the legacy of the house that offered rooms for 75 cents a night to everyday folks and famous entertainers alike.

He incorporated the property and is applying for grants for repairs. He envisions a museum downstairs and a bed and breakfast upstairs.

"I want to keep the house self-supporting in the tradition of my grandmother and mother," he said.

His mother, born in 1917, ran the boarding house for more than 50 years, serving blacks who couldn't check into white rooming houses or hotels in the segregated South. The boarding house closed just before she died.

Robinson has photos of his maternal grandmother, Sarah Jackson, who ran the rooming house as well as the Jackson Cab Co., the city's only black-owned cab service in the 1930s. His only old photograph of the house isn't very clear, however.

"It shows some of Union Station but not much of the house," he said.

Rodney Kite-Powell, curator of the Tampa Bay History Center, said it's a shame there aren't early photographs of the Jackson House. He said the Burgert Bros. collection, an extensive photographic record of early Tampa, includes little from black communities.

"Photographs there were taken very haphazard," Kite-Powell said. "The only ones we have are from urban renewal projects or Urban League reports."

Robinson said his family always talked about the past. That's his record.

Robinson, who used to work for Hillsborough County, has lived on and off in the 24-bedroom house for more than 50 years. Since his mother died, he has lived there alone.

Just as his mother was a fixture walking downtown until illness kept her inside for a year before her death, Robinson likes the urban scene.

"It's changed tremendously," he said. "Very little is left of the old neighborhood where we all hung out. But I enjoy the new life that's coming in."