Ballast Point

Ballast Point sits on the west side of Hillsborough Bay, just north of MacDill Air Force Base. Ballast Point Park, with waterside walkways and views of downtown, was developed in 1894 as a tropical park at the end of Tampa's first electric trolley line and was first named Jules Verne Park, after the author who chose Tampa as the launch site in From the Earth to the Moon. Its homes, many with large old-Florida porches, joined the city when Tampa annexed the area in 1953.