Betting On The Sunshine

Betting On The Sunshine

History points out that St. Petersburg followed the trend of many other southern cities, adopting the nickname of the “Sunshine City.” However, one daring man took it to the next level.

Marketing on the “Sunshine City” theme as early as 1910, St. Pete’s  Evening Independent newspaper gave away—free of charge—every copy that came off the presses any day the sun failed to appear.

Llewellyn Buford Brown, the Evening Independent’s editor and vigorous promoter of St. Petersburg’s public waterfront, called his faith in dear old sol’s penchant for gracing Pinellas with its health rays the “Sunshine Offer.” He even went as far as proclaiming his beloved home the “Sunshine City.”

Recalling P.T Barnum’s famous quip, “that any man who should connect his advertising with the weather would make a ten-strike,” Lew Brown rolled out his “Sunshine Offer” on September 1, 1910 with a full-page announcement. Word of the offer soon spread nationwide.

“After two or three years,” reminisced Brown decades later, “full-page illustrated write-ups of the Sunshine offer were printed in the (multi-) colored Sunday supplements of practically all the great daily newspapers of the United States, giving it fourteen million (in) circulation.”

It was meant to draw national attention to the growing waterfront city, and it worked. The city became a popular tourist and retirement destination. At the outbreak of World War II, the Evening Independent halted the free paper offer, but reversed course after five days.

In 1962, the paper was purchased by the St. Petersburg Times. However, by the early 1980s, afternoon newspapers were struggling everywhere, and on Nov. 7, 1986, the Evening Independent published its final edition. The paper’s 53 employees transferred to the Times.

The Evening Independent and the Sunshine Offer are surely missed by longtime residents, but they had a great run! In the 76 years of the “Sunshine Offer,” the newspaper was given away 296 times- roughly 4 times a year. Indeed, St. Petersburg is the Sunshine City.

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