Mayors of Tampa — Tampa, Florida

The City of Tampa Clerk's archive of Previous Tampa Mayors numbers 59 mayors, beginning with Joseph Bradford Lancaster, whose term started February 14, 1856, and ending with Jane Castor, listed as the 59th mayor from May 1, 2019 to the present. The count of numbered mayors is smaller than the count of terms, because the archive gives a returning mayor a new number each time a different mayor served in between. Herman Glogowski carries four numbers (21, 23, 25 and 27), and Dick Greco carries two (50 and 56).

The Tampa list also includes acting mayors, usually Council presidents who stepped in after a death or resignation, and it records stretches with no mayor at all. From February 23, 1862 to October 24, 1866 the archive enters No Municipal Form of Government, and it lists John Henderson for non-chartered years from July 1870 to mid 1872. As of October 8, 2026, the City of Tampa identifies Jane Castor as the 59th Mayor of the City of Tampa on its mayor page. Last verified: October 8, 2026, on the City of Tampa website.

The first was Joseph Bradford Lancaster, a Kentucky-born attorney who had already been Mayor of Jacksonville and a Florida Supreme Court judge. According to his City of Tampa biography, Tampa was reincorporated as a city on December 15, 1855, by the Florida Legislature, and two months later, on February 14, 1856, the citizens of Tampa elected Joseph Bradford Lancaster as their first mayor. His administration dealt almost entirely with the Third Seminole War, and he died in office in Tampa on November 25, 1856, after Council President Darwin Austen Branch had stepped in as acting mayor.

Turnover in the 1850s and 1860s was rapid, with one-year terms recorded on the Tampa list. James Edgar Lipscomb, elected at a public meeting at the Hillsborough County Courthouse on August 11, 1873, became at age twenty-three the youngest person to serve as mayor in Tampa's history, according to the archive. The same meeting voted to reincorporate as the Town of Tampa, which lasted until the second City Charter of 1887.

That 1887 charter is tied to Herman Glogowski, a German-born clothing merchant on Washington Street. His biography states that on August 13, 1886 he was the first Jewish person to be elected as Tampa's mayor, that he lobbied the Florida Legislature for incorporation, and that on July 26, 1888 he laid the cornerstone of the Tampa Bay Hotel built for Henry B. Plant. The archive calls him the only person to serve four non-consecutive terms as Tampa's mayor.

Donald Brenham McKay, grandson of the sixth mayor and longtime editor of the Tampa Times, served from 1910 to 1920 and again from 1928 to 1931. His City of Tampa biography credits his first tenure with completing City Hall in 1915 and opening Tampa's first public library in 1917. McKay sat out the commission era: Charles H. Brown was, according to the archive, the first mayor of Tampa to serve under the commission form of government, taking office in January 1921 with four commissioners who appointed a City Manager. In 1927 Tampa voters approved a new City Charter that reinstated the mayor-city council form, and McKay returned.

Robert E. Lee Chancey defeated McKay and held office from November 3, 1931 to November 3, 1943, through the economic collapse of the 1930s. His biography describes a treasury drained by boom-era bonds of $13,000,000 and deep cuts to Tampa departments, followed by federal relief that completed the Peter O. Knight Airport on Davis Island, widened Bayshore Boulevard with a new seawall, and in 1933 established the University of Tampa.

Curtis Hixon, the 45th mayor, was an Alabama-born pharmacist who moved to Tampa in 1914 and served on City Council from 1929 to 1937. His City of Tampa biography states that he defeated the three-term incumbent Robert Chancey in 1943 by the largest majority in Tampa's history and won again in 1947, 1951 and 1955. Drew Field was transferred to the City on October 15, 1947 and is now Tampa International Airport; in 1953 the City annexed Sulphur Springs, Rocky Point and the surrounding areas up to Fowler Avenue, adding 91,000 people; and in 1956 the 2,000-acre Henderson Field was acquired to establish the University of South Florida. Hixon died in office on May 21, 1956, and the riverfront where an auditorium bore his name is now Curtis Hixon Waterfront Park.

Nick Chillura Nuccio, born in the Ybor City section of Tampa, followed with two separate terms as the 47th and 49th mayor; his biography credits him with the Fairyland amusement park and Lowry Zoo. Between those terms came Julian Barnes Lane, the 48th mayor, from October 1, 1959 to October 1, 1963. A Tampa native and dairy businessman, Lane defeated Nuccio in a run-off. His biography records that in 1961 he supervised the transition when the City of Port Tampa was annexed, and that in September 1963 the first Black children were enrolled in traditionally white schools at Jackson Heights and Westshore Elementary Schools. Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park, nearly 25 acres, now carries his name.

Dick Greco won the Tampa mayoral race in 1967 with 34,001 votes to Nuccio's 25,169, and at 34 was one of the youngest mayors of a major U.S. city, according to his biography. He resigned in March 1974 for a private sector post, and three acting mayors followed within months: Richard L. Cheney, then Lloyd Copeland, who served from June 19 to October 3, 1974, according to the archive. William F. Poe was elected in October 1974. Bob Martinez served from October 1, 1979 until he resigned on July 16, 1986 to campaign for Governor of Florida, as his biography notes.

Sandra Warshaw Freedman, chair of Tampa City Council, took the oath on July 16, 1986 and became Tampa's first woman mayor, then won two full terms, according to her biography. Greco returned for 1995 to 2003. Pam Iorio, a former Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections, served from April 1, 2003 to 2011, per her archive page. Bob Buckhorn, the 58th mayor, served April 1, 2011 to May 1, 2019; his biography credits his administration with the Tampa Riverwalk and the nearly-25-acre Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park.

Jane Castor, a lifelong Tampa resident who became the city's first female Chief of Police in 2009, was elected mayor in 2019 and overwhelmingly reelected in 2023, according to the City of Tampa. The next Tampa mayoral election is in March 2027: the Tampa Bay Times reported on April 15, 2026 that Council member Bill Carlson was one of eleven candidates who had filed.