Tarpon Springs is a city in Pinellas County, Florida, United States. The population was 23,484 at the 2010 census.[5] Tarpon Springs has the highest percentage of Greek Americans of any city in the US.[6] Downtown Tarpon Springs has long been a focal point and is undergoing beautification.[7]

The region, with a series of bayous feeding into the Gulf of Mexico, was first settled by white and black farmers and fishermen[8] around 1876. Some of the newly arrived visitors spotted tarpon jumping out of the waters and so named the location Tarpon Springs. The name is said to have originated with a remark of Mrs. Ormond Boyer, an early settler from South Carolina, and who, while standing on the shore of the Bayou and seeing fish leaping exclaimed, “See the tarpon spring!’ However, for the most part, the fish seen splashing here were mullet rather than tarpon. In 1882, Hamilton Disston, who in the previous year had purchased the land where the city of Tarpon Springs now stands, ordered the creation of a town plan for the future city.[1] On February 12, 1887, Tarpon Springs became the first incorporated city in what is now Pinellas County.[1] Less than a year later on January 13, 1888, the Orange Belt Railway, the first railroad line to be built in what is now Pinellas County, arrived in the city.[9] During this time the area was developed as a wintering spot for wealthy northerners.