Vintage St. Pete: The Science Center

What I love most about this place is the impact it will have on the St. Petersburg of tomorrow. We are living in a time of extraordinary transformation. Intelligence technologies are blooming and will reshape our economy, our communities, and our daily lives – more profoundly than anything has in our lifetimes. 

If we want to not only survive but to thrive in this fast-approaching world, we must be well prepared.

                                                   Joe Hamilton, St. Pete for STEAM founder, at the St. Petersburg Science Center groundbreaking/Jan. 9, 2026

The last Periodic Table of the Elements was peeled off the walls of the St. Petersburg Science Center in 2019. The beakers, Bunsen burners, and bird bones are long gone, too, along with half a century of test tubes, aquariums, rock specimens, rocketry fuses, and coils of copper wire for hand-building simple radios.

Hammie the pig, Oogie the opossum, and Monty the python are no longer with us.

File photo.

The concrete block building at 7701 22nd Avenue N. – once a thriving four-acre hub of education and activity – sat empty, unused, and unappreciated for more than seven years. Age finally caught up with it by 2014, and then, inevitably, the money simply ran out.

Re-imagined for the 21^st century, the Science Center will rise again, through the efforts of St. Pete for STEAM,* which purchased the dilapidated facility and grounds from the City, and has big plans for the future.

*science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics

When the Science Center opened in this location in 1966, it was a jewel in St. Petersburg’s crown, the first nonprofit dedicated solely to independent science education for children grade school age and up.

Over time, it’s estimated that hundreds of thousands of youngsters visited the Science Center for morning “field trip” classes, weekends and summer camps.

There were no grades. Classes were taught by professional science educators, many of them retired, all of them committed to the idea that learning about the natural world, and other important subjects from rocketry to chemistry to (in the 21st century) computer literacy was key to a well-rounded education. And that it could be exciting.

The father of the Science Center was William Guild, a recently widowed retiree from Massachusetts who took a small apartment on Mirror Lake Drive in 1952. The wiry 60-year-old was a former newspaperman who’d subsequently spent 40 years as a realtor, but his passion was science.

Guild, who’d never finished college, was an amateur naturalist, and he found the mostly undeveloped Pinellas County a veritable garden of discovery.

He and other naturalists created an informal group they called the Science Club of St. Petersburg. Retired entomologist and head of the local Audubon chapter Alfred F. Satterthwait was voted president. Guild, one of just two amateurs in the group, became head of the educational component. Others were experts in wildflowers, fossil shells, trees and taxidermy.

The group embarked on field-collecting trips (“walkie-talkies”) and met on the third Tuesday of each month at the Museum of History.

After a Science Club exhibit of local wonders attracted crowds to St. Petersburg Junior College, Guild reached out to the Pinellas County School system and proposed that his group help supply experiments and exhibits for their science classes. “These individuals could be of inestimable value to our school in helping to collect, arrange and classify exhibits for science,” said St. Pete High principal C. Taylor Whittier.

Within a year, the club received project requests from 45 of the 54 schools in Pinellas, from electronics to hydroponics. The first semi-permanent iteration of the newly-named Science Center was at Mirror Lake Junior High.

The Science Center coined a motto: “Science is Fun. See it – Touch it – Do it Yourself!”

In April, 1954 Guild produced St. Petersburg’s first-ever Science Fair, held at Bartlett Park Youth Center. After working successfully with the Pinellas Science Teachers Association and a trio of state universities on 300 displays on everything from meteorological phenomena, astronomy and chemistry to live animals with taxonomy information, he began to formulate plans for an actual Science Center: A dedicated facility where regular classes could be held, experiments undertaken, the wonders of the natural world examined and discussed.

Plus, the apartment and garage on Mirror Lake Drive were getting cramped with equipment, and wall-to-wall with constant visits from children wanting to know about turtles, snakes, plants or rocks.

Parents magazine profiled Guild in 1955; the story was subsequently reprinted in Reader’s Digest, which referred to the “lively little man” as “The Pied Piper of Science.”

“You know why I succeed?” he asked the reporter. “I don’t know very much. But I can think like a boy.”

The kids, reported the magazine, called him “Uncle Bill.”

When county crews widening Joe’s Creek with heavy equipment uncovered large animal bones, Guild was called in to identify them. They were, he realized, what remained of a long-extinct prehistoric mammoth. “The kids should be in on this,” he told county administrators.

They agreed, and the site was left clear for “scientific exploration.” Soon, a host of young diggers had unearthed the remains of other prehistoric animals: Mastodons, extinct camels, and horses.

His success mounted – the first State Science Fair was held in St. Petersburg in 1958, and by then the county science fair was so large it had to be moved to the gargantuan Gay Blades Roller Rink.

1964: Main lab room at the Arlington Avenue location. File photo.

Guild’s pleas for a larger, centralized space were answered by the City, which offered the Science Center use of the former B’Nai Israel synagogue at 1039 Arlington Avenue, for $1 per year. The synagogue had relocated after the congregation outgrew the building.

Nell Croley.

“Our hope is to attract not only the all around gifted child, but also perhaps to uncover the unsuspected gift, which so many children have but which never comes to light,” director Nell Croley told the St. Petersburg Times in 1959, after the Science Center had settled into the Arlington location.

A longtime science teacher at Pinellas Park Elementary School, Croley had a Master’s in Science Education.

A board of directors and a governor’s council were created to oversee the new nonprofit organization. Instructors were hired, mostly retired public school teachers. The Science Center could accommodate up to 300 students.

In May, 1960, Guild received an award from the Community Welfare Council. It was reported that he did not attend the banquet “because he was at a meeting trying to raise money for the Science Center.”

Two months later, he was out, with no public explanation offered:

The St. Petersburg Science Center has been closed until Oct. 1 for a reorganization.

William Guild, founder of the Center, was given until Aug. 1 to remove articles belonging to him from the Center building at 1039 Arlington Avenue N.

 Dr. Leonard Freed, chairman of the center’s board of directors, said a program committee will work out projects during the reorganizational period.

St. Petersburg Times/July 12, 1960

The city’s evening paper reported that all the center’s locks had been changed, and that “Uncle Bill” was furious.

Although Guild remained in St. Petersburg, the Science Center went on without him.

Guild died of cancer on Nov. 20, 1962 in New York, at age 70. He had been staying with his daughter while receiving treatment.

Under the direction of Nell Croley, with funding from grants and private donations, the Science Center continued to prosper.

St. Petersburg has received national recognition because of its Science Center. Marsflight II, simulated flight launched by the center in 1961, was exhibited at the Air Force convention in Philadelphia in September of that year. Feature stories about the Center have appeared in The National Observer, American Youth, Life and Teen Age.

St. Petersburg Times/July 21, 1963

The Science Center Guild was established in 1963 to fundraise. The goal was to escape the antiquated Arlington facility. Classes were at capacity, and space was tight. The three laboratories in the non-air-conditioned building often reached 100 degrees.

The City wanted the property back, to demolish it and then expand 11th Street.

In September, the Science Center paid the city $15,000 for five acres of pine trees and palmetto scrub on 22nd Avenue N. Construction began a year later. The Guild was dispatched to raise $150,000 for the new two-story, 73,000-square-foot building, which could handle twice as many students as its predecessor.

Croley and her team were thrilled that the new location was on the west side of town, making it much more likely that students from Largo, Clearwater and even further could make the pilgrimage and learn about science.

In the final tally, the cost was $166,000. But the improvements were significant. The (fully air-conditioned) facility included six labs, a library, a theater, workrooms, offices and (separately, out in back) a telescope in a small observatory. There was a garden, which in time would include a mosaic walkway depicting all 50 states.

After several construction delays, the St. Petersburg Science Center was dedicated on March 5, 1966. Representatives from every St. Pete club, organization and business that had contributed, through money, labor, or both, were there to hear a speech from G.A. Van Staden, assistant administrative director for the John F. Kennedy Space Center.

Jack King, the voice of NASA’s Mission Control Gemini missions, performed the countdown to the ceremonial ribbon-cutting.

“We’ve come a long way from Uncle Bill Guild’s garage,” center director Croley said from the podium. “I think we’ve made it.”

Seymour and Susan Gordon, 2024. Photo by Bill DeYoung.

As the longest-tenured Science Center director (1979-2004), Susan Gordon looks back on the glory days with a mixture of pride and amazement.

“I loved knowing you could influence children,” she explains. “Science was a course that could be very dry in schools. And what we did was a hands-on program that supplemented what was being taught in the schools.”

Through arrangements with the Pinellas school system, and private learning centers, students in grades K through 12 were bussed in weekday mornings, by grade level, for non-graded classes taught, almost exclusively, by retired professionals.

These instructors “loved it because they could set their own curriculum and they could teach what they wanted. They weren’t directed that they had to teach so-and-so.” The students enjoyed the sessions because they were low-pressure.

Gordon, a former high school science teacher with a BA in Science Education, succeeded Howard Michelet in the director’s role. She found herself at the head of a dozen-member staff, both full and part-time, which expanded to more than 30 during the busy summer months.

Since public schools weren’t in session then, active teachers were happy to work with Science Center kids. “Our summer programs,” she says, “could fund almost the rest of the year for us.”

The center’s budgetary needs were otherwise met by private and corporate donations, trusts, an endowment, the Juvenile Welfare Board and city, county and state educational grants.

It was, in every sense, a community undertaking.

When repairs were needed – or additions called for – builders, painters, roofers and landscapers frequently stepped up to donate materials and time. If that was not feasible, they’d perform the work at discounted rates.

The Walk of States at the Science Center. File photo.

In 1969, architect John David Parrish designed a curved concrete addition, to house a library and small planetarium. It was named for former bank president Starley M. White, who donated the $85,000 needed. White also donated the Walk of States – one large mosaic panel for each of the 50 states, including the state bird and the state flower – which became the centerpiece of the Science Center’s backyard garden.

The garden later included a life-sized reproduction of a Tocobaga Indian village – a 3-D look at Florida in the 16^th century.

The Junior League gave them a van for a “mobile outreach program” to the schools.

NASA loaned the Science Center a Mercury space capsule, an Atlas booster and a section of a Titan missile.

The St. Petersburg Times donated a Honeywell H-1640 Series mainframe computer (“as big as somebody’s kitchen,” Gordon remembers) that spit out information on punch cards. In the early to mid 1970s, schools were opening their own computer labs, utilizing teletype tape and connected via telephone lines to the Science Center mainframe, long before the invention of the internet.

The Science Center constructed a working computer lab – with desktops that functioned as word processors and primitive mechanical brains. It quickly became the most occupied room in the building.

 “I would actually die without the computer,” said Northeast senior David Hyman. “It’s addicting. Once you get started, you can’t stop.” Adds fellow senior Richard Ross: “You can solve problems with the computer which can’t be done any other way.”  St. Petersburg Times/Feb. 11, 1975

Sixteen Macintosh computers were added – then replaced with more versatile Windows PCs (all the equipment was donated to the Science Center). A second lab opened. Adults took evening classes to learn about these new-fangled contraptions, including Susan Gordon’s lawyer husband Seymour. He signed up for a photography class, too.

In 1992, legal secretary Connie Whitehead joined the fundraising Science Center Guild, and proceeded to construct a well-oiled system that included a yearly auction of everything from artwork to cruises and airline tickets. “I felt comfortable asking for an item, not money,” Whitehead says. “I wasn’t ready to ask for cash yet.”

That would change. Corporations, she discovered, have a dedicated fund for nonprofit donations. When you mentioned the words “children” and “education,” out came the checkbooks. “It was easy,” she recalls. “Everybody knew why I was doing it.”

Whitehead had no previous experience in fundraising. She joined the Science Center team following the tragic death of her adult son in a traffic accident, looking for a way to keep her mind occupied.

She and her team transformed Science Center fundraising. For 20 years, she begged, borrowed and cadged, brainstorming dinners and galas and themed events at the Club at Treasure Island, the Don CeSar, downtown hotels and restaurants and other tony locales.

The Science Center of Pinellas County, a.k.a. the St. Petersburg Science Center, a.k.a. the Science Center. Photo: City of St. Petersburg.

Seminole artist William Hisle volunteered to paint a 22-foot mural of the Space Shuttle Challenger on the planetarium building’s outer façade in 1993. He spent a total of 400 hours on the project, and added large planetary paintings to the Science Center’s interior.

The Carol Samuels Observatory. Photo provided.

Longtime supporters Carol and Allen Samuels donated $25,000 toward the construction of an observatory in the backyard area. In 1998 the Carol Samuels Observatory was fitted with an $18,000 research-grade Meade Instrument telescope for use by the 400-member St. Petersburg Astronomy Club, which met at the Science Center once a month.

“They were really great guys,” remembers Donna Vitale, the center’s animal curator (and an instructor) from 1989 to 2014. “Whenever there was some astrological event, an eclipse or something like that, the whole Astronomy Club would bring all their telescopes and set them up out in the back. And it would be open to the public.”

At other times, Vitale says, “the club would open up that giant telescope and train it on Saturn or Jupiter or Mars. People would walk up a little ladder to look in the eyepiece and see what they could see. It was a monster telescope.”

The Science Center menagerie included, at various times, red rat snakes, yellow rat snakes, ball pythons, rabbits, guinea pigs, hedgehogs, turtles, iguanas, lizards, tarantulas and scorpions. “All of those animals were used to teach our animal science classes,” notes Vitale.

There was Oogie the opossum, who occasionally escaped and could always be located by the sound of his claws clicking on the tile floor as he scuttled along in hiding. And Hamlette the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. “Hammie,” as the staff affectionately called her, would “visit” the animal science classes “and teach the kids how smart pigs are.”

Most popular of all was Monty the python, 14 feet in length and weighing 85 pounds. Scout troops would stand in a line, each boy holding a section of stretched-out Monty (a female), for a souvenir photograph. Monty, who lived in a tall glass case in the Animal Center, arrived at the Science Center the same year as Susan Gordon.

The marine touch tank. Video screengrab.

In the Marine Biology Room, raised three feet off the floor, stood a shallow, 600-gallon saltwater touch tank with clear plexiglass sides, containing starfish, sea urchins, crabs, fish and even small stingrays.

The Starley M. White Planetarium. Photo provided.

Although the planetarium could only seat 35, it was a popular weekend attraction for the public, particularly when the computerized Media Globe full color projection system ($200,000) was installed. At the flick of a switch, the planetarium’s domed ceiling could reproduce any night sky in history, or any known celestial event. It was an advanced tool for learning the planets and the constellations, and the ways in which they interact and affect each other.

On Sept. 9, 2010, Science Center students were able to talk to astronauts living aboard the International Space Station via a NASA-supplied downlink.

By then, Susan Gordon had retired. After an accident in her home, while playing with her 3-year-old grandson, she decided she’d had enough. “I was there 25 years, and you almost work 24 hours a day raising money,” she explains. “The board didn’t do too much.”

Video screengrab.

She left in 2004. “The last years I was there, we were running anywhere from 30,000 to 40,000 students through there a year, from Kindergarten to adults. One summer alone, we had 2,500 kids, although not all at one time. We nearly killed ourselves.”

Whitehead says she resigned – some years later – for similar reasons. She was unhappy with the board of directors. “I just didn’t feel they did anything. They had their name on the letterhead, and that was it.”

The years ahead would bring modernizations and upgrades, and a focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education.

Although not every young person who came to the Science Center went on to change the world, Gordon says she still hears from people whose children launched their careers with those classes.

“These are people who are so glad their children had that push,” she beams. “It’s amazing when you find out that they’re doctors, they’re scientists, they’re research people. There was one time when almost every major computer company had people that had been students at the Science Center.”

Not long ago, at a busy brunch, the Gordons invited another couple to join them at their table.

“I said ‘I’m Susan Gordon …’ and the woman said ‘You don’t have to introduce yourself.’ She gave me her name, and then she said ‘I took my son to the Science Center every summer. And now he’s working on AI.’’

Computer technology and cybersecurity training were among the course offerings at the Science Center in the second decade of the 21st century. Video screengrab.

Like virtually all nonprofits, the Science Center took a bad financial hit during the recession of 2008 and 2009. Philanthropists, it appeared, had more important things to do with their money than give it to a 50-year-old specialized school.

Donors, board president William Schweikert said, had been pushing for the center to embrace a technology-focused curriculum, in keeping with the rapid changes in the world.

And the cookie jar was almost empty. The Science Center’s $700,000 endowment had been tapped one too many times and would soon be gone.

Schweikert announced a six-month closure, to begin in September 2009, so that the board and the Science Center’s staff of 22 could restructure and develop a more practical operating plan.

New director Joe Cuenco convinced the board to keep the center open. He promised to establish more corporate sponsorships (Progress Energy already had a major sponsorship stake) and bring in more STEM classes for middle and high-school age kids. He also proposed renaming it the Center for Youth Innovation.

According to board member (and eventual president) Mike Mikurak, the writing was already on the wall. The Science Center’s shelf life was almost at an end.

“The large supporters that helped create the Science Center were no longer there,” he says. “The cost for providing educational services for elementary and middle school students continued to go up while the school system was, in essence, trying to create their own. The Science Center was losing money.”

The buses continued to run, although the number of students was noticeably smaller. The public still came for planetarium and observatory events. People booked the lobby and planetarium for kids’ birthday parties. The animals and the touch tank remained popular.

Inside the Bay News 9 weather simulator are Michael Horn, left and Chance Hoffman. Photo by Lara Jackson.

Bay News 9 set up a “weather station” allowing visitors to experience simulated hurricane- and tornado-force winds; robotics became a popular class, and state tournaments were held at the center.

But the world was changing too fast.

“We began to do manufacturing programs, and creating opportunities to help educate and establish apprenticeships and the like,”  Mikurak explains.

With am assist from the defense company Raytheon (Schweikert was director of engineering) and St. Pete College, they created a cybersecurity certification program.

These initiatives caught the attention of Ed Peachey, director of the job placement organization CareerSource Pinellas. The company had been looking for a location in northwestern St. Petersburg, and the Science Center could be had for a song.

Well, a cheap song (just $100, along with the promise of renovations and other improvements). Under the name of its parent corporation, WorkNet Pinellas, CareerSource “merged with” the aging Science Center in 2012, reconfiguring a portion of the space for its own day-to-day operation.

“Obviously, we’re going in there to make this work and kind of bring the Science Center back to life,” Peachey told his executive committee. “It’s fallen on hard times. It just needs an infusion of something new. We can bring that to the table.”

The property, he told them, was valued at $2.5 million.

Yet as schools improved their science curricula, there was less need for Science Center bussing. And as newer, shinier, more sophisticated science-focused destinations appeared (Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry, the Great Explorations Museum in St. Pete), the Science Center continued to fade. And to lose money.

Peachey took out a $700,000 mortgage on the property and spent $400,000 on repairs, including a complete overhaul of the HVAC air system. Offices were constructed for CareerSource staff. For a period, children heading to their Science Center classes literally walked through the job placement area.

In 2018, Peachey was ousted from CareerSource over alleged financial and other improprieties, none of them concerning the Science Center. In December, facing a $586,000 balloon payment, company administrators considered refinancing, then decided to cut their losses and sell the property altogether.

The City of St. Petersburg paid WorkNet $3.15 million for the Science Center. The northernmost three acres were used for an expansion of the neighboring Northwest Water Reclamation Facility (the Carol Samuels Observatory structure was demolished for this purpose).

The (remaining) staff was terminated. The animals were relocated and most of the equipment sold off. The research-grade Meade Instrument telescope was donated to the St. Pete Astronomy Club, which had maintained it since its installation.

In addition to his role as Science Center board chair, Mikurak sat on the board of CareerSource. So he had a front-row seat for the Science Center’s final act. “It was no longer a viable entity in the community,” he says. “And the community saw it as not viable.”

July 23, 2021: City Councilmember Robert Blackmon, left, Representative Linda Cheney and Senator Darryl Rouson announce the acquisition of federal funding for the Science Center. Photo by Bill DeYoung.

City Councilmember Robert Blackmon, who represented District 1 (including the Azalea neighborhood) was the first to suggest that the Science Center – reconfigured for the 21^st century – should not go up in historical smoke.

Blackmon and his sister had attended summer camps there as children. “The best, most comprehensive, far-reaching scientific education I got in my life was the Science Center,” he explained. “They went so in-depth into computers, robotics … Native American history … astronomy … we went to Peace River and hunted for fossils on field trips. I said hey, maybe we can try and save this thing.”

Blackmon found an ally in State Senator Darryl Rouson (D-St. Petersburg), whose brother got an engineering degree from Howard and a doctorate in mechanical engineering from Stanford – and always credited the Science Center with sparking his interest in the sciences.

As the Science Center appropriations from the state legislature and the Dept. of Housing and Urban Development reached $5 million, Blackmon needed a nonprofit to receive the money; he settled on Pathfinder Outdoor Education. That organization in turn brought in the St. Petersburg Group, a civic-focused consultancy organization headed by co-founder Joe Hamilton. The project continued to evolve.

Eventually SPG and its philanthropic arm, the St Petersburg Foundation, took the lead, securing $1.5 million in state funds in 2022 with Rouson and Rep. Linda Cheney (R-St. Petersburg). SPF added another $2.5 million in state funding with the aid of Rouson and Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Seminole), bringing the total to $9 million.

In December 2025, the City sold the property to St. Pete for STEAM – a division of the St. Petersburg Group created solely for the Science Center project – for $1.6 million.

The organization, by that time, had raised $15 million towards the estimated $25 million necessary to rebuild and revitalize the Science Center.

From left: Rep. Berny Jacques; Former Councilmember Robert Blackmon; Mayor Ken Welch; Joe Hamilton, co-founder of the St. Petersburg Group; Councilmember Copley Gerdes; Rep. Linda Chaney; former Gov. Charlie Crist; and Sen. Darryl Rouson ceremoniously break ground on the Science Center’s redevelopment. Photo by Bill DeYoung.

At the Jan. 6, 2026 groundbreaking, most of the principal players were in attendance including Hamilton, Blackmon, Cheney, Jacques, Rouson, St. Petersburg Mayor Ken Welch, City Councilmember Copley Gerdes and former Florida Governor (and St. Pete native) Charlie Crist.

The original 1966 building is in poor condition, and will be replaced by a four-story, 45,000-square-foot facility. The Starley M. White Planetarium building will remain (the original Minolta projection machine for “star shows” is still there, although the seats and other creature comforts have been removed. No one has checked yet to see if it still works). The “Walk of States” will be restored to its former glory.

The St Petersburg Group has a bold vision for the new facility, doubling its size and adding additional services to serve the entire community, as well as children. At this writing, the re-imagined St. Petersburg Science Center is expected to debut in mid-2027.

Emerging technologies, Hamilton said, will be the focus, but there will be “throwback” classes, events and even summer camps for young scientists.

Just like “Uncle Bill” Guild back in the 1950s, Hamilton is looking towards the future.

“We think there’s an incredible opportunity to build the emerging tech power base for the region. The Science Center will act as a docking station for artificial intelligence and other emerging tech projects that impact education, careers, philanthropy, economic development, thought leadership, policymaking and whatever opportunities present themselves in the realm of AI.”

A rendering of the reimagined Science Center, which should open in the summer of 2027. Rendering: Victor Fehrenbach @Rob Bowen Design.