Sulphur Springs in Tampa, Florida

Sulphur Springs is a north Tampa neighborhood of about 10,000 residents on the Hillsborough River, named for a second-magnitude spring that feeds the river.

The City of Tampa Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan describes a community of approximately 10,000 residents, and the city's Sulphur Springs neighborhood page describes it today as a combination of historic homes mixed with new homes, many located along the Hillsborough River under the shade of numerous grand oak trees. The same page notes the 225 feet tall Sulphur Springs water tower, built around 1927, which still stands as a landmark for the neighborhood.

The spring itself is a natural feature of the river system. The Southwest Florida Water Management District (SWFWMD) says there are two second-magnitude springs that contribute flow to the Hillsborough River, Crystal Springs and Sulphur Springs. Unlike the rural setting of Crystal Springs south of Zephyrhills, the District notes, Sulphur Springs is located in a highly urbanized area of Tampa, and on average it discharges 22 million gallons of water per day, which supports the downstream ecology of the river.

Sulphur Springs became a resort when Dr. John Mills built bath houses and a pool there by 1901, and Josiah Richardson filed the Sulphur Springs addition to Tampa in 1904.

The City of Tampa dates the first mention of Sulphur Springs in Tampa history to 1889, when the Tampa commissioners contracted for a bridge over the Hillsborough River at the county road now known as Van Dyke Place. The bridge was completed in 1891 and used until 1961. By 1901, the city says, Dr. John Mills had acquired land in Sulphur Springs and laid out walks, built bath houses, created a fish pond, started a restaurant, built a dock and a pool, and a steamer traveled the river between downtown Tampa and Mills' Springs. In 1904 Josiah Richardson purchased 100 acres from Dr. Mills and filed a subdivision called the Sulphur Springs addition to Tampa.

A trolley soon followed the steamer. The 1993 National Register nomination for the Seminole Heights Residential District, the neighborhood immediately to the south, records that Sulphur Springs began to grow at the turn of the century when a developer bought property around the mineral spring north of Tampa and built bathhouses and tourist cottages. In response to the growing popularity of the recreational area, the Sulphur Springs Traction Company built a trolley line linking downtown Tampa with Sulphur Springs, which opened for business in 1907. The nomination names Sulphur Springs alongside Ybor City, West Tampa and Port Tampa among the satellite communities that grew as Tampa expanded from the 1890s, and it describes Nebraska Avenue as the road linking downtown Tampa with Sulphur Springs and Temple Terrace.

The Southwest Florida Water Management District says the Sulphur Springs spring in Tampa has been closed for recreation since the mid-1980s because of high bacteria counts.

The District watershed page describes Sulphur Springs as a former swimming spot for tourists and residents, where concrete walls surround the spring to make a circular swimming pool. The District does not give an exact closing date beyond the mid-1980s.

Even closed to bathers, the spring keeps flowing. The District's figure of 22 million gallons per day is what makes Sulphur Springs useful to the lower Hillsborough River, the stretch below the City of Tampa's dam, and it is the reason the spring appears in the river recovery plans described in the next section.

Since 2012 the Sulphur Springs Weir and Pumping Station has moved spring water to the base of the Rowlett Park dam to help the lower Hillsborough River meet its minimum flows.

The District's WaterMatters article from its July and August 2012 issue (the web copy is dated July 16, 2018) explains the problem: since the 1970s there have been prolonged periods with no flow past the City of Tampa's Rowlett Park dam because the water is used extensively for Tampa residents, so the river below the dam saw increased salinity levels that stressed plants and animals relying on tidal freshwater and low salinity habitats. The joint venture between the District and the city began in 2007, when a recovery strategy was developed because the river was not meeting its minimum flows.

A January 4, 2008 District news release set out the targets: new minimum flows for the Lower Hillsborough River of 24 cubic feet per second (cfs) from April through June and 20 cfs the rest of the year, at least twice the previous minimum of 10 cfs, to be met by 2017. The recovery strategy identified five potential projects, all subject to permitting and feasibility:

Source: SWFWMD, January 4, 2008. The District and Tampa negotiated a $44.5 million funding agreement for these projects, with the District paying 50 percent of the Sulphur Springs, Blue Sink and transmission pipeline projects. The 2012 WaterMatters article reported that District staff and City of Tampa officials celebrated the opening of the Sulphur Springs Weir and Pumping Station, that the project cost $5.3 million of which the District paid half, and that the District's chief environmental scientist said it would divert the maximum amount of spring water to the base of the dam while maintaining minimum flows to Sulphur Springs Run.

The city returned to the question later. City of Tampa RFQ 21-D-00043, the Sulphur Springs Flow Augmentation Feasibility Study, was posted on Friday, June 18, 2021 with a submission deadline of July 29, 2021, and the solicitation page lists both the RFQ and an award document.

The City of Tampa finished a three-phase Sulphur Springs Neighborhood Action Plan in November 2025, built around four focus areas and a playbook of ten top actions.

The action plan page (updated August 20, 2026) says the plan identifies implementable strategies and priority projects to support the continued revitalization of Sulphur Springs, developed with residents, local businesses, property owners and multiple city departments and partner agencies. Its timeline ran from Phase 1, Data Assessment and Neighborhood Positioning, in January 2025, to Phase 2, Vision and Draft Neighborhood Action Plan, in July 2025, and Phase 3, Final Neighborhood Action Plan and Implementation Strategies, in November 2025.

The City of Tampa says the plan is organized around four thematic focus areas: economic vitality, communication design, promotion, and policy and organization. The final report has four main sections, a Summary of Phase One, a Summary of Engagement Activity, a Playbook of Top Ten Actions and Community-led Actions, which together establish the framework for the next stage of work.

The City of Tampa Sulphur Springs page lists three capital projects, led by a $19,700,000 design-build rehabilitation of the Sulphur Springs Pumping Station.

Source: City of Tampa, Sulphur Springs neighborhood page, read October 18, 2026. The city describes both pumping station projects as restoring the station's reliability, and the Yukon Street project as resurfacing with pedestrian accessibility improvements. The listing assigns the Yukon Street project to Council District 6 and the two pumping station projects to District 5.

Last verified: October 18, 2026, on the City of Tampa Sulphur Springs neighborhood page, action plan page and RFQ 21-D-00043, three Southwest Florida Water Management District pages on the spring and the lower Hillsborough River, and the Seminole Heights National Register nomination.