Here’s the story behind St. Petersburg’s iconic hexagon-block sidewalks

The brown pelican is St. Petersburg’s official city bird. Sunshine City is the nickname. And if cities had official shapes, St. Pete’s would be the hexagon.

Hexagon-block pavers line sidewalks in historic neighborhoods like Roser Park, Uptown and Kenwood. Revelers trip on the six-sided slabs while bar-hopping across downtown. The shape is tucked inside logos of organizations like St. Pete Pride and Preserve the ‘Burg. Even some of the city’s official documents are decorated with hexagons.

Hexblock sidewalks, a tradition nearly 120 years old, are protected by city code. Here’s how the distinctive shape became part of St. Petersburg — and why the city loves them so much.

A step into history

Newspaper clippings mention hexblock sidewalks appearing along Central Avenue and Fourth Ave. North in 1906. But historians trace most of St. Petersburg’s early hexblocks back to Farmer Concrete Works, a family business created in the early 1910s by Hope Aciel Farmer. Some of those original blocks can still be found in neighborhoods like Old Southeast.

“About every city block he laid a slab that was stamped ‘Farmer Concrete Works,’” David M. Jackson, Farmer’s great-grandson, told the Times in 2005. “...The more I saw those stamped blocks, the more I saw my heritage.”

Manny Leto, executive director of Preserve the ‘Burg, says Farmer Concrete Works once laid over 100 miles of hexblock sidewalks. The company was behind one of the city’s first industries.

At the time, it was easier and more affordable to create a sidewalk by laying individual blocks instead of mixing and pouring concrete by hand. Previous sidewalks were made out of shell or wooden slabs on top of sandy soil, Times archives said. Farmer’s 12-by-18 inch hexblocks came in green, blue, yellow and red, as well as the standard gray. Workers hauled the blocks by wagon and mule.

“Even before Farmer’s arrival, a community of Black laborers had already established itself as a crucial element of the local economy and city growth,” wrote Tina Stewart Brakebill in a 2021 Green Bench Monthly article. “These workers proved to be essential to the spread of hexblock sidewalks throughout the city.”

Farmer’s business, originally called H.A. Farmer Contractor and Builder, started at 825 Third St. S. Brakebill reported his operations moved to 24th St. South, “closer to the segregated 22nd Street neighborhood where many of the company’s Black laborers lived.”

“His legacy is incomplete unless we also remember the many Black laborers who toiled under the hot sun and the oppression of Jim Crow laws to construct those sidewalks,” she wrote.

A 1985 column in the Times titled, “There’s a hex on our sidewalks” offered some theories about the shape. Some thought the town’s founders wanted to “copy the colorful sidewalks of Rio de Janeiro.” Hexagons were supposed to sit well on Florida sand.

“But hexblocks, especially when buffeted by roots or heavy traffic, didn’t float on the sand quite as well as had been hoped,” the Times wrote.

The city pivoted to solid concrete-slab sidewalks, which were cheaper, by the 1940s.

Farmer Concrete Works shifted to other products, like driveways and garden furniture, before closing in 1961. By then, the hexblock complaints had already started.

Cracked blocks stymied people who used wheelchairs, had vision impairments or wore high heels, said the 1985 Times column. Some pedestrians sued the city after tripping on hexblock sidewalks — and won.

Historic preservationists lift the hex

Like Augusta block brick roads or the Pink Streets of Pinellas Point, hexblocks are a part of the city’s cultural heritage. That’s what members of the City Arts Commission said in the late 1970s.

After some hex pavers were removed in the 1960s and early ‘70s, the city began looking into ways to save neighborhoods from losing more historic walkways. The city eventually adopted a resolution to repair and replace broken blocks inside local or National Register historic districts.

“That is something that is unique from other places that people visit, so they associate that with St. Petersburg,” said Derek Kilborn, who manages the city’s Urban Planning and Historic Preservation Division. “They have this emotional, nostalgic connection to them.”

Blocks are also protected in the Old Southeast, which became the city’s only official “hexagon block preservation district” in the early 1990s. A flurry of city resolutions from 2002 to 2005, later consolidated around 2015, placed additional rules against removing hexblocks from city sidewalks, Kilborn said.

“What you see in the hexblocks are residents trying to maintain a piece of St. Pete’s historic character and charm,” he said.

The city’s stormwater, paving and traffic operations department maintains a stockpile of about 6,500 hexblocks, according to the mayor’s office. Pavers in the stockpile are not for sale, but residents inside historic areas can report broken hexblocks for free replacement.

Broken hexblock sidewalks outside of protected areas may also be replaced from the stockpile. If the damage is too severe, the city saves the blocks that are intact and replaces the walkway with a concrete sidewalk.

City code states that anyone who damages a protected block could be hit with a $500 fine. But Joe Waugh, director of codes compliance assistance, said he’s never heard of the fine actually being issued.

“If we discover that hexblock pavers or an entire hexblock sidewalk have been removed, we will cite the adjacent property owner for completing work in the public right-of-way without a permit,” he said in a provided statement. “This requires them to go through the appropriate process to restore the public right-of-way. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $250 per day that could then be certified as a lien against the property.”

In Historic Old Northeast, flower petals pile up on top of hexblock sidewalks. Banners adorned with hexagons flutter in the wind. The blocks are found on monuments with the neighborhood name.

“I think people realize that they’re part of what contributes to the character of the Old Northeast,” said Robin Reed, a former board member for the Historic Old Northeast Neighborhood Association who focused on preservation for 20 years. “There are a lot of streets that have poured concrete these days that weren’t protected until recently.”

The Historic Old Northeast has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 2003. Visitors and residents love the variety of old architecture and the oak tree canopy, but also the brick streets and hexblocks. Reed’s home sits on the corner of her block.

“The front has hexblocks and the side has poured concrete, which I lament all the time,” she said. “I’d rather have hexblocks.”

Information from the Tampa Bay Times archive was used in this article.