TBO.com - TBO is Tampa Bay Online

Mullen Was Known For Key Role In Ybor

ADVERTISEMENT

By JEFF HOUCK

jhouck@tampatrib.com

Published: December 12, 2008

Related Links

• Sign The Guestbook

Harris Mullen

TAMPA - Harris Mullen was a visionary.

The description is apt for someone who started a magazine named Florida Trend in 1958 and turned it into the region's award-winning gold standard for business journalism before selling it two decades later.

It also fits a man who bought a former cigar factory with the intention of invigorating a neglected historic neighborhood with a shopping center and office space.

Longtime Tampa residents and friends are mourning Mullen's passing. He died Wednesday evening at Brandon Health and Rehabilitation Center after suffering for many years with Parkinson's disease. He was 84.

"Harris Mullen was one of my heroes," said University of South Florida historian Gary Mormino, who recalled how Mullen came to the rescue in 1972 by purchasing the abandoned V.M. Ybor factory and revamping it into Ybor Square.

"It was a time when few investors were rushing into Ybor City," Mormino said. "For over a decade, Ybor Square and the Columbia Restaurant were the pillars holding Ybor City together."

Kay Mullen, his wife of 59 years, remembered on Thursday a conversation her husband had with former Columbia owner Cesar Gonzmart.

"He said to Cesar, 'I got one end of the street and you have the other end. Together, we'll pull up the middle.'"

Born in Tampa in 1924, Mullen graduated from Plant High School in 1943 after serving as senior-class president. It was there that he acquired the nickname "Mule Mullen" for his persistent manner. An all-state guard for the Panthers (in September 2007 he was inducted into Plant's Hall of Fame), he went on to study at and play football briefly for Duke University.

In 1946, after graduating from Duke as an ensign in the Naval ROTC, Mullen returned to Tampa to be a reporter at The Tampa Tribune.

In 1949, he jumped to his father, Charles Mullen's, magazine, Florida Grower and Rancher, and became publisher a year later. He was recalled into the Navy in 1951 to serve two years during the Korean War aboard a destroyer escort.

In 1958, Mullen founded Florida Trend magazine and later served three terms as president of the Florida Magazine Association. In 1980, he sold the magazine to the Times Publishing Company, publishers of The St. Petersburg Times.

He sold Ybor Square in the 1990s and focused on his Civil War history hobby. He also pushed for the creation of the electric trolley system as co-founder of the Tampa and Ybor City Street Railway Society. A trolley museum founded in Ybor City is named in his honor.

A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. Saturday at St. Andrew's Episcopal Church, 509 E. Twiggs St., Tampa. Visitation will be held one hour prior to the service in the Parrish Hall.

Reporter Jeff Houck can be reached at (813) 259-7324.

Share this:

Loading Comments...

Email Print

ADVERTISEMENT