Living history: Gulf Beaches Historical Museum

Gulf Beaches Historical Museum
115 10th Ave., Pass-A-Grille. Open Wednesdays through Sundays from September through May, and from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays, 1-4 p.m. Sundays, during the summer. gulfbeachesmuse um.com. 

Amidst Pass-A-Grille’s wind-bent palm trees and cotton-candy bungalows sits an old stone chapel that’s now a cozy sanctuary of local lore.

The inviting Gulf Beaches Historical  Museum, built in 1917, offers a chapter of history all on its own — it was the barrier island’s first place of worship, purchased in 1960 by local socialite Joan Haley. Haley, the wife of a former Secret Service chief in D.C., worked as a society reporter and died in 1989 at 92. She bequeathed her lovingly landscaped chapel home to Pinellas County with the understanding it be used as a museum of local history.

Established in 1993, the museum lives up to that promise, displaying war memorabilia, old postcards, touristy flotsam and jetsam, and fascinating scrapbooks of the area’s founding families, including the Hurleys, namesake of a real estate agency and a park.

The collection also includes clippings and photos of the Skyway Bridge before, during and after its 1980 collapse; a history of the nearby Don CeSar hotel; and a pew and artwork from the original Pass-A-Grille Church.

Brochures offer a step-by-step walking tour and mini-histories of nearby residences and businesses, plus a history of the area by Frank T. Hurley Jr. (whose father is pictured above). Docents (ask for Sally Yoder) are knowledgeable, friendly and helpful; they can tell you about the Banyan Tree Cottage vacation rental that once belonged to President Harding’s mistress, Carrie Phillips, or about silent film star Norma Talmadge, who secreted herself at 1805 Pass-A-Grille Way after her prime.
 

Notably, this is the only museum in Pinellas that’s run entirely by volunteers.

This article appears in Sep 3-9, 2015.