McMullen-Coachman Log Cabin

In 1902 Soloman and Jessie Coachman purchased the McMullen homestead, including the cabin and about 240 acres, for $8,100. They modernized the house by adding glass to the open windows and sealing the gaps between the logs. Solomon operated a sawmill, ran a large general store, grew citrus, and helped lead the movement to separate Pinellas from Hillsborough County, while the cabin served as both home and office. He sponsored many political rallies there as Jessie served cookies and lemonade, and in 1912 he became the first chair of the newly created Pinellas County Board of County Commissioners. When a new railroad was built between Tampa and St. Petersburg in the 1910s, he allowed the rail line to cut through his property, and in the following years the family expanded their groves and built a citrus packinghouse, a new two-story home, and other outbuildings near the tracks. At Coachman Station, tourists traveling to Clearwater and St. Petersburg bought marmalades, preserves, pecan pralines, boxed fruit, and other goods at Jessie's Kumquat Sweet Shop, which she built to resemble the log cabin. Jessie also gave tours of the cabin and devoted herself to preserving it, and many regarded it as a monumental shrine to the early settlers of Pinellas. Although remodeling over the years gave the home a much more modern appearance than it had in the 1850s, and eight arson attempts in November 1976 destroyed the original second floor, it remains the oldest standing structure in Pinellas County.

Ridgecrest, Florida · United States