Davis Island was created from two man
made islands atop two small natural islands formerly known as Little Grassy Key and Big
Grassy Key at the mouth of the Hillsborough River. The land was built up from mud dredged
from the bottom of Tampa Bay in the 1920's and expanded. This dredge and fill operation
was undertaken by developer and Tampa native D. P. Davis. Today Davis Island is a
mix of residential and retail areas.Davis Island is also home to Peter O. Knight
Airport, Davis Island Yacht Club, and Tampa General Hospital. Also on the Islands are the
Marjorie Park and Marjorie Park Municipal Yacht Basin. Marjorie Park was donated to
the City of Tampa and named by Davis after his wife Marjorie Merritt Davis.
With a canal fully separating a portion of the island from the rest of it, Davis
Islands is technically an archipelago, hence the plural form Islands it its name.
Originally, Davis Islands consisted of three islands. However with the construction of the
airport, the end of one canal was filled in to make enough land area for a runway,
connecting the two largest islands at their southern ends, thus reducing the archipelago's
island count to two.
