Fast Facts: The Bridge Named Fortune

Every day, cars rush across the Fortune Taylor Bridge in Tampa. Commuters head to work. Families move through downtown. Tourists snap photos of the river below. Almost no one notices the name posted above the water, and even fewer know the woman behind it.

Fortune Taylor did not merely live near the river beneath that bridge. She owned it, cultivated it, defended it, and shaped the city long before Tampa was a city at all. This is the story of a woman whose legacy was nearly erased, even as the city continued to cross over it.

The Forgotten Matriarch of Tampa

Madame Fortune Taylor was born around 1825 in South Carolina, enslaved and largely undocumented, one of countless people whose lives were deliberately left out of official records. After emancipation, she made a choice that defied expectations. Instead of moving north like many freed families, she and her husband Benjamin Taylor traveled south into frontier Florida.

They settled along the west bank of the Hillsborough River, in an area that was little more than rough land and possibility. Fortune planted citrus groves, sold produce, worked the soil, and saved her earnings. In a time when Black women were expected to own nothing, she purchased thirty-three acres of land. That land would later become prime downtown Tampa real estate.

This was not inherited wealth. It was built slowly, deliberately, and against the odds. A formerly enslaved woman became one of the area’s most significant landowners at a time when land meant survival, security, and power.

Land, Legacy, and a Bridge

When Benjamin Taylor died, Fortune did not lose her property. In the late nineteenth century, Black landowners were routinely pushed off their land through fraud, legal challenges, and intimidation. Fortune held her ground. She continued farming, selling goods, and managing her acreage.

She also gave it back. Portions of her land were donated or made available for churches, community gatherings, and mutual aid. Her property became an anchor for a growing Black community that depended on both her land and her leadership.

By the early 1900s, Tampa’s expansion required a bridge across the river. City planners faced a reality they could not ignore. The land they needed belonged to Fortune Taylor. The bridge was built, and it bore her name, first as The Fortune Street Bridge and later as the Fortune Taylor Bridge.

Every vehicle that crosses it today passes over land that once belonged entirely to her.

What History Forgot

Fortune Taylor’s story is rarely taught in full, and the omissions are telling.

After her husband’s death, multiple attempts were made to challenge her ownership, a common tactic used to dispossess Black landowners. She successfully defended her rights and kept her land.

Early twentieth-century surveys gradually stopped listing her as the original owner. Development records were simplified in ways that obscured Black ownership and minimized her role in Tampa’s growth.

Many early Black churches and social gatherings took place on land she donated or allowed communities to use freely, yet her contributions were rarely credited.

Even the bridge that carries her name nearly lost its connection to her story. Local historians had to fight to preserve markers and documentation to prevent her legacy from disappearing entirely.

Her accomplishments were not forgotten because they were insignificant. They were overlooked because they challenged the narrative of who was allowed to build cities.

Why It Still Matters

Fortune Taylor’s story is about more than land. It is about agency, presence, and persistence. She built power without political office, wealth without inheritance, and legacy without recognition.

The bridge named after her is more than concrete and steel. It is proof that American cities were shaped not only by politicians and developers, but by Black women whose labor and land made growth possible.

Madame Fortune Taylor did not inherit power. She planted it.

Visit Her Legacy

Fortune Taylor Bridge Historical MarkerKennedy Boulevard, Tampa, FloridaDesignated by the Hillsborough County Historical Advisory Council

If you ever cross that bridge, pause. Look at the river below and remember a woman who shaped the city long before the city remembered her name.

Author’s Reflection

Madame Fortune Taylor left no diary, no speeches, no memoir. What she left was land, and land endures.

Her bridge is a reminder that power often grows quietly, without applause or monuments. History’s true builders rarely leave blueprints. They leave footprints, strong enough that a city still walks across them today.

References and Historical Sources

Hillsborough County Historical Advisory Council. Fortune Taylor Bridge Marker and Biography.Cigar City Magazine. The Bridge of Fortune.Tampa Bay Times Archives. “Forgotten Landowner’s Legacy Lives Through Bridge.”Florida Memory Project. African American Landownership in Reconstruction-Era Florida. University of South Florida Special Collections. Fortune Taylor Land Documents.