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Actor Lloyd Bridges poses with townspeople at the Sponge Docks during the filming of 16 Fathoms Deep (1948) in Tarpon Springs. During the late 1940s and early 1950s, both this film and Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953) created a romantic aura around…

Mike Renios, suited up for diving on George Georgiou’s diving exhibition boat, Plastiras, on February 10, 1969. The tourist exhibition boats often provided employment for divers in the off-season or for those who were not able to spend weeks out in…

The crew of the tourist boat St. Nicholas III poses for a photograph. Standing on the dock are Captain Michael J. Billiris, Angelo V. Billiris, unidentified diver; on the boat are George M. Billiris, Theodore J. Billiris, unidentified, Ted M.…

In 1924 the Billiris family created one of the early sponge industry attractions. St. Nicholas Boat Line Sponge Diving Exhibition still functions as a cruise from the Sponge Docks up the Anclote River that incorporates an exhibition of hard-hat…

Anna Smolios Kouskoutis Ioanidis (right) worked in Sylvia Billiris’ (left) gift shop during the 1950s. With the decline of the sponge business in the late 1940s and early 1950s, tourism based on Greek culture and the sponge industry became Tarpon…

Outside their gift store on Pinellas Avenue in 1948 are children Costas Pappas, Fanitsa and Theodosios Frantzis, and adults Katherine Esfakis Pappas, her father-in-law Costas George Pappas, and sister-in-law Zula Pappas Frantzis. Katherine was raised…

A Greek saleswoman explains the properties of a vase sponge inside a tourist store near the Sponge Docks, 1936. Shops very similar to this one remain today, together with specialized and general tourist shops.

A merchant surveys the street from the doorway of his tourist shop stocked with shells and sponges in 1936. In decades past, tourist shops near the Sponge Docks marketed items such as sponges, shells, curios, and Greek vases.