When the Capitol Theatre opened on March 21, 1921 (it was built by Senator John S. Taylor), the local press declared that it was "“one of the most beautifully finished playhouses in the South.” That night the theater showed the silent film, "Dinty." For the next seven decades, the Capitol was Clearwater's primary entertainment venue, from offering vaudeville shows to performances by the Clearwater Symphony Orchestra. In 1995, local businessman Socrates Charos bought the building and named it the Royalty Theater. It once again offered silent films and hosted cultural events. By 2009, the Capitol appears to have closed was facing foreclosure. Fortunately, the city bought it and reached an agreement with Ruth Eckerd Hall to operate it. The name was changed back to Capitol Theatre at that time. The theater was renovated in 2013 and expanded into two adjacent buildings.

The Capitol Theatre following its grand re-opening.

More information about the theater and the philanthropists behind the restoration effort

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This historic theater reopened in 2014 following an $11 million restoration project sponsored by the city of Clearwater. Restoration efforts were given a surprise boost when Geri Trautlein donated $1 million to support the project in honor of her late husband Ray, whom she met for the first time at this theater at the age of fourteen. The building was erected in 1921 and offered movie showings and live vaudeville performances. It is one of the city's oldest operating theaters.

Capitol Theatre, Clearwater Florida

Enjoy this mile-and-a-half walking tour that offers a glimpse into Clearwater's past. Starting at the Clearwater Historical Society and Museum and moving to the county courthouse and several historical hotels, the tour then visits the city's landmark 1921 theater (fully restored in 2014). This tour offers a chance to "go back in time" and experience Clearwater's early schools, hotels, businesses, and public buildings. Highlights include the Cleveland Street Post Office, Pinellas County Courthouse, and the Gray Moss Inn- a hotel that once stood at the location of the Church of Scientology's Flag Building. The tour concludes at Mount Olive AME Church. 

Clearwater Florida Walking Tour

The building stands on what was once the homestead of settler John S. Taylor, who settled in the area before the Civil War. In 1855, the first school on the homestead (and on the Pinellas Peninsula), the Taylor School, was built. The first organized public school in the county was founded in 1873 and located in a log building erected in 1866 for the Midway Baptist Church. It appears the Taylor School closed in 1873 but the first South Ward School, a wood-frame structure, was constructed on a lot of the Taylor homestead in 1884 (at the time, this property belonged to a settler named William Campbell, who donated it for the school). By 1902 the number of students rose to 90. Due to the rapid growth of the community, school officials decided that the wood frame schoolhouse was insufficient and ordered the construction of the present, two-story masonry building. It opened in 1906 with four classrooms. The wood school was demolished and in its place came the first Clearwater High School. This larger building next to the old elementary school served as a high school until Clearwater High moved to its current location in 1954. Two more buildings were erected next to South Ward School in 1951 and 1969. In addition to operating as a school, South Ward also served as community gathering place.

The Clearwater Historical Society Museum and Cultural Center opened in 2019 and is dedicated to preserving and promoting the county's history through its exhibits and educational programs. It is housed in the former South Ward School, which was the county's first publicly funded school. It operated until 2008 and sat vacant until the museum and cultural center opened. The former school was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

Clearwater Historical Society Museum and Cultural Center

Pinellas County was part of the adjacent Hillsborough County, which was established in 1834 from Alachua County. Pinellas Peninsula remained sparsely inhabited until the 1890s when the Orange Belt Railroad was built down to St. Petersburg. By then, Tampa, which is the county seat of Hillsborough County, had become a thriving commercial and tourist center. By 1900, however, the peninsula remained generally isolated as most of the county tax revenue was reinvested into Tampa. As a result, communities in the peninsula did not receive much funding or county services. Few tourists ventured into the peninsula as well. This situation began to change in 1901 when the new owner of the St. Petersburg Times, William L. Straub, started writing editorials criticizing Tampa for ignoring the peninsula. In 1905, he began calling for the creation of a new county in an editorial titled, "The Pinellas Declaration of Independence." After years of effort, and attempts by Hillsborough County politicians to stop the process, residents voted in favor of the new county in November 1911. The first courthouse, a wood-frame structure, was built quickly in just 30 days. However, to gain support of the new county, Straub made a compromise that made Clearwater the county seat for twenty years. Officials in St. Petersburg soon came to regret this agreement, as only two members from St. Petersburg served on the county's five-member commission. The three other members of commission, who were from the northern part of the peninsula, voted to build the courthouse in Clearwater. As a result, many in St. Petersburg believed Clearwater "stole" the courthouse and, apparently, bitter feelings between the two communities remained for several decades. To illustrate this tension, during the construction of the first courthouse, armed guards protected the site after rumors spreading claiming people from St. Petersburg would come burn the building down. In 1915, the courthouse had become too small for the county and plans were set in motion to erect the present building. It was completed on July 7, 1918 and additions were built in 1924 and 1926. Other changes were made in 1936.

Completed in 1918, the Old Pinellas County Courthouse served as the seat of county government for several decades and now houses a law library and modern courtrooms. City leaders built it in fear that they would lose the county seat to St. Petersburg unless they erected a modern courthouse to replace the previous one, which was rather hastily-completed in 1911. The building is also notable for its Neoclassical Revival architecture. Designed by architect Francis J. Kennard, the most interesting feature is the grand portico with large Ionic columns supporting an entablature. The old courthouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1992.

Old Pinellas County Courthouse 

Starting with the construction of the Fort Harrison Hotel by
Ed Haley in 1926, Oldsmobile inventor Ransom E. Olds operated the hotel for
decades until his death in 1950.&nbsp; Following
Olds death, Fort Harrison was purchased by Jack Tar Hotels, who expanded the
original construction and operated the hotel until 1975.&nbsp; The hotel had fallen into disrepair during
the early 70s, and had largely fallen in popularity with visitors to the
area.&nbsp; In 1975, the Church of Scientology
purchased the building under the guise of two front organizations known as “Southern
Land Development and Leasing Corp” and “United Churches of Florida Inc.”&nbsp; Following the purchase of the hotel, the
Church undertook a multi-million dollar restoration and upgrade of the hotel,
which brought it back to functional standards. &nbsp;

In 1989, the site came under considerable scrutiny after “the
Affadavit of Hana Eltringham-Whitfield” was published.&nbsp; The affidavit included allegations of forced
labor, mental and emotional torture, and inhuman living conditions being
utilized to control Sea Org members who were accused of poor behavior within
the Church.&nbsp; Whitfield claimed that the
Church housed the RPF within the Fort Harrison, forcing members to undergo
extensive mistreatment including constant running and physical labor,
restriction of hygiene, severely reduced living conditions, and paranoia-inducing
psychological torture by means of behavior auditing.&nbsp; She claimed that the misdeeds of those placed
in the RPF were never clearly explained, and that harsh interrogation was used
to force members to confess their own misdeeds, often leading to confessions of
actions that never occurred.&nbsp; Whitfield
also brought forward claims that, even after escape, the Church threatened her
extensively, promising to make her life outside of the Church as bad as it was
within it.&nbsp; Whitfield left Fort Harrison
in early 1982, having been put through extensive “security checking,” which
involved even harsher interrogation than she had undergone before.

In addition to the Affadavit of Hana Eltringham-Whitfield, a
number of other strange occurances have brought scrutiny on the seemingly beautiful
and peaceful Fort Harrison.&nbsp; In 1980, a
member of the Church by the name of Josephus A. Havenith was found dead in a
room within the Fort Harrison Hotel.&nbsp;
Cause of death was deemed as drowning, however, the bathtub was filled
with water hot enough to have burned his skin and his head was not submerged
beneath the water.&nbsp;&nbsp; In 1988, a member of
the Church by the name of Heribert Pfaff died of a severe seizure within the
Hotel after being placed by the Church on a vitamin regimen in lieu of his
usual seizure medication.&nbsp; In 1995, the
most suspicious of all the deaths at the location occurred.&nbsp; Lisa McPherson, a member of the Church, died
after allegedly being held in room 174 of the Fort Harrison for over half a
month.&nbsp; The cause of death was officially
determined to be from a blood clot caused by dehydration and excessive bed rest.&nbsp; Originally a Church spokesperson acknowledged
the fact that she had died at the Fort Harrison, but this statement was later
retracted by the Church as erroneous, who then claimed she had died on the way
to the hospital.&nbsp;

The Clearwater police report a notably high number of
emergency calls from the Fort Harrison Hotel, however, Church private security
regularly refuse the police entry to the hotel, claiming that the calls were
made in error.&nbsp; Police have been refused
numerous times from investigating the specific source of the calls, being
barred from entry by Church guards.&nbsp;

Despite the controversies, the Church offers regular, guided
tours of the location, which can be scheduled at the nearby welcome office.

Built by land developer Ed Haley in 1926, the Fort Harrison Hotel in Clearwater, Florida is now one of the most recognizable buildings of the Church of Scientology.  Its stands as one of the core buildings of the Flag Service Organization campus, the “spiritual headquarters” of the Church, where Church leadership hopes to help realize Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s vision of the future.  While it once functioned as a tourist hotel, Fort Harrison now houses visiting adherents to the Church.  Additionally, it is allegedly used as a part of a punitive branch of the Church known as the Rehabilitation Project Force.  The Rehabilitation Project Force (RPF) is, according to previous members of the Church, a labor and imprisonment program used to punish “deviant” members of the Church’s elite sect, the Church of Scientology Sea Organization.  In line with this allegation, there have been a number of suspicious deaths at the location.


Fort Harrison Hotel  

This location was home to a hotel from 1898 to the property's acquisition by the Church of Scientology following the building's sale in 1990. In 1898, the Verona Inn opened for business. It changed its name to the Gray Moss Inn in 1926. During these years, the hotel was one of the better establishments in the city. While most of the Brooklyn Dodgers stayed in the Cleveland Hotel, players like Roscoe McGowen bragged to Sport Magazine in the 1960s that was permitted to treat his wife to accommodations at the Gray Moss. 

In 1959, the hotel also became the home for the studios of the radio station that is now WAZE-AM 860 Clearwater. The hotel was a Clearwater establishment for decades, but like most downtown hotels, it struggled in the face of competition by interstate hotel chains and by the 1980s, most of its rooms were being rented by the month to residents who could not afford better accommodations. A 1989 fire caused over $100,000 in damages and led to the property's sale and demolition. The site of the former hotel is now occupied by the Church of Scientology's Flag Building. 

Gray Moss Inn, 1898-1990

Prior to the construction of the Powell Building, this was the site of&nbsp;N.N. Friend Dry Goods &amp; Grocery Store. The store was destroyed by fire in 1910 and replaced by the current building, which housed Powell's newspaper and People's Bank.&nbsp;

The Willis B. Powell Building was completed from 1913-1914 and housed the offices and printing plant of Powells' newspaper, the St. Petersburg Independent. Powell established the newspaper in 1906, making it the first daily in Clearwater-St. Petersburg. The building was also home to the Clearwater Daily Sun-later the Evening Sun. Powell sold the Sun in 1916, declaring that he intended to take an automobile tour of the United States and return as a "free lance." The building was acquired in 2012 by the city of Clearwater as part of their effort to restore and operate the Capitol Theatre. 

Powell Building

Constructed on the former site of the Gray Moss Inn, which
had been unused since 1989, the Super Power Building finished construction in
2011.&nbsp; It was opened to operations in
November of 2013, hailed in by a large gathering of Scientology adherents
including Hollywood stars Tom Cruise and John Travolta.&nbsp; The building is now valued at over $80
million, though totals raised by the Flag Service Organization exceed $145
million.&nbsp; The Flag Service Organization
itself is a 501(c) non-profit, and as a result is one of the few Church of
Scientology Organizations with any form of transparency as to its leadership
and operations.According to plans the Church has made available, the
building contains numerous theatres and viewing facilities, an indoor running
track, two museums honoring L. Ron Hubbard and the Sea Org, bookstores,
libraries, and hundreds of study rooms.&nbsp;
The Church also claims that the building contains advanced training
equipment to train believers’ “perceptics,” allowing them to achieve superhuman
senses and abilities.&nbsp; These devices
allegedly include anti-gravity simulators and partial sensory deprivation
devices.&nbsp; Leaked interior blueprints
include strangely named facilities such as the “time machine,” “pain station,”
and the “infinite pit.”&nbsp; The entrance
lobby is an enormous chamber lined with sculptures depicting renditions of the
ideals of the Church of Scientology.&nbsp; The construction of the Flag Building facilities was a
troubled ordeal.&nbsp; The original completion
date was set to be in late 2003, but the building was not actually completed until
2011 (and did not open until 2013.)&nbsp;
Additionally, due to the numerous delays in the construction and
increasing costs of construction, the Church ran numerous fundraising
campaigns, asking for donations from members and offering unique accolades for
participation.&nbsp; By the end of the
project, the Church’s stated cost of completing the building had doubled.&nbsp; These costs included nearly half of a million
dollars in fines owed to the city of Clearwater for violating city construction
codes for years.&nbsp; The opening date of the
Super Power Building was changed a number of times including a sudden cancellation
of the opening ceremony just a month before the ceremony was originally
planned.&nbsp; However, despite troubles along
the construction timeline, the Flag Building was valued at $80 million at
completion and now represents the most recognizable building in Clearwater.

Standing as the largest building in the city of Clearwater, Florida, The Church of Scientology’s Flag Building serves as the keystone structure of the Flag Service Organization campus, Scientology’s “spiritual headquarters.”  It is nicknamed the “Super Power” building, as it is the central facility where Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard’s “Super Power Rundown,” a secret series of teachings on unleashing personal and spiritual power, is taught.  As of the publication of this profile, it is one of the newest buildings of the Church of Scientology.  The building is open 24 hours per day, 365 days per year, and guided tours can be attained by visiting the nearby visitor welcome center.  


The Flag Building / Super Powers Building

This historic post office was designed by architect Theodore Skinner and completed in 1933 by the Walt and Sinclair construction firm of Florida. The building features limestone from the Florida keys and was built to resemble the seaside villas that had become synonymous with the famous resorts being built throughout this section of Florida. The post office is an anchor of Clearwater's historic district and was placed on the National Register of Historical Places in 1981.

Cleveland Street Post Office

The congregation that eventually established the Mount Olive Church was founded in 1894, and originally worshipped in a simple, refurbished&nbsp;wooden house&nbsp;near the location of the current church. It was later recognized as Hope Henry AME Church,&nbsp;one of only two Black churches in segregated Clearwater, Florida. The original church once stood where the vacant lot adjacent to the current church stands. The first formal sanctuary was built in 1896 and rebuilt ten years later. The stone foundation of the present church was constructed&nbsp;in 1913-1914, as well as a new church building. However, a storm blew down the walls of that building in 1926, and&nbsp;in that year&nbsp;the present stucco church was built over the 1913 foundation and renamed Mount&nbsp;Olive African&nbsp;Methodist Episcopal&nbsp;Church.&nbsp; The church is considered a Masonry Vernacular building, with some elements of Gothic Revival&nbsp;style. (The Gothic Revival was the first of the
Victorian-era styles to challenge the symmetry and order of Classicism. Popular
from 1835 to 1860, the style was used for churches, civic buildings and houses.) The building has multiple parapets, a castellated tower, some stained glass windows and, in the sanctuary, a cove wooden ceiling characteristic of Gothic Revival style, but lacks the steep cross gables that are also characteristic of the style. The building measures 65 feet north to south and 35 feet east to west. The exterior walls of the church are concrete block finished in textured concrete stucco. All exterior walls&nbsp;include stuccoed concrete buttresses placed about ten feet apart that rise about fifteen feet above grade. The exterior walls rise above the&nbsp;building's flat roof, creating a parapet surrounding that roof. The southeast corner has a tower that rises ten feet above roof level.&nbsp;Except for a few minor changes, such as the installation of a central air conditioning and heating system in the early 1970s, the church today is not significantly different from the way it appeared in 1926. The role of the church in the Black community
also has hardly changed over the years. The church's philosophy is succinctly expressed as: "One Team, One Heart, Unified to Impact Lives!" Current ministries of the church include: Church
School, Adult Ministries, Children's Ministries, Young Adult Network, Music
Ministries, Teaching Ministry and Greeter's Ministry. In addition, during periods of social turmoil,&nbsp;the church&nbsp;has served as a source of strength and
solace to the residents of the area. During times of
war in the 20th Century, when young men of the community left to
serve in the military, the church stood as a place of support for their
families, and when a family member was killed, it was church
members that would stand by the families and do whatever was needed to help it cope with its loss. One member said “that when her son went off to war
it was the church that helped her through the ordeal."&nbsp;&nbsp;

The Mount Olive African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church, located in the historic African-American city of Clearwater, Florida, within the Tampa-St. Pete-Clearwater metropolitan area, is a gabled building constructed in 1926. (The foundation was built in 1913-14.) It is rectangular in shape with a corner bell tower and a stucco exterior. It is located north of Clearwater's downtown commercial district, adjacent to the Pinellas Trail, in a mostly residential neighborhood of small, older, single family frame houses. According to its National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) nomination form, the church “is locally significant under Criterion A in the areas of Social History and Ethnic Heritage: Black for its association with the development of the social culture of the African American community in the city of Clearwater, Florida… [and] under Criterion C due to the Gothic Revival characteristics it displays.” The church was entered in the National Register of Historic Places on February 3, 2000. 


Clearwater Florida Walking Tour

Capitol Theatre, Clearwater Florida

Introduction

Images

Backstory and Context

Sources

Additional Information