Lutz Tutors

About Lutz

The first thing Lutz tutors will tell visitors, is that name Lutz is pronounced, “loots.” Before Lutz existed there were tentative plans to have a community be built in the vicinity. A small group of investors from Chicago merged to form the “North Tampa Land Company.” The vision was to buy a large area of land in the region and carve it into small plots so that the new owners could have some farmland and make a living from growing fresh citrus. After close consideration they narrowed it down to two possible locations; The area where Lutz is, and the area just south where Stemper is.

Lutz began as a small area, surrounding a small train depot/wood rack stop, on a large railway line called the “Tampa Northern Railroad.” The “Tampa Northern Railroad” connected Tampa through Stemper and Brooksville, and was constructed in 1907. The train’s technology was nowhere near as advanced as it is today. At the time in order for the trains to function, the engines required frequent stops. Essentially Lutz was simply a “wood rack stop.” A place to stop briefly and take on more fuel, which at this time was wood for the train’s old wood-burning engines.

According to Lutz tutors, W.P.Lutz was a professional railroad engineer, who was responsible for engineering the Tampa Gulf Coast Railway (a.k.a “The Peavine” because it was so crooked) to connect Odessa with the Tampa Northern Railroad. W.P.Lutz other interest was as a sawmill owner, and the railroad allowed him access to thousands of trees that were densely covering the Tarpon area.

For the “North Tampa Land Company” in 1910 it would seem that Stemper would have been the better choice for their development, because it already had some development and infrastructure in place, e.g. a post office, commissary and housing. The only issue with developing there was an ongoing lease with the “Stemper Turpentine Company.” So the group decided that it would be preferable to develop further north where the now named “Lutz Junction” was located.

A short while after Lutz’ track was built in 1909 a post office was constructed along the railway line near the wood stop newly named “Lutz Junction”. As was customary at the time, no U.S. Post Offices were allowed to share the same name, so the name “Lutz” was chosen to honor the man from West Virginia who brought the railroad to town, W.P.Lutz.