ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A child\u2019s footprints in concrete at an old St. Pete Beach house led to a connection between fire chiefs who served the city for decades across two different eras, according to Jim Kilpatrick.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was kind of like a time capsule,\u201d he said. \u201cThat connection is really something that I’m going to cherish for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kilpatrick worked for St. Pete Beach Fire Rescue for nearly 25 years and was fire chief for more than a decade before retiring this past June. He purchased the house, which was built in 1947, from his brother in the late 90s. Kilpatrick said he often wondered about the footprints in the concrete pathway leading up to his front door.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it would rain or I’d wash the car, I’d see footprints right about here and the date of August 1953,\u201d he said. \u201cI always wondered who that person was, and I learned that the previous owner was a gentleman named Bo Casini.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kilpatrick said about two years ago, he found Casini\u2019s daughter Karen on social media and reached out to her. Karen revealed those footprints were hers and were pressed into the concrete when she lived in the house at the age of 7. Kilpatrick said she recently turned 80.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told her that I would get her that piece of concrete if I ever replaced the sidewalk,\u201d he said. \u201cWhich I did and I gave her that piece of concrete. When she showed up, she brought some mementos.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through her old photos of the house, Kilpatrick said Karen revealed another connection. St. Pete Beach Fire Chief Charles \u201cBucky\u201d Hartman, who retired in 1995, also once lived there and got married in the backyard.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was kind of cool to me, being the former fire chief and Bucky being former fire chief as well,\u201d he said. \u201cHe was really connected to the community \u2026 that’s really something that I strive for.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bucky\u2019s son, Billy Hartman, still lives and works in St. Pete Beach. Hartman said his dad would have gotten a kick out of the fire chief connection to the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s pretty cool,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Kilpatrick said he moved out of the house years ago and currently rents it out. Hurricane Helene severely flooded the home, located near Blind Pass, in 2024 and it recently passed a final inspection. Kilpatrick said it never crossed his mind to demolish the house.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a museum piece for me,\u201d he said. \u201cSo, I don’t know if anybody else feels that way but it’s certainly historical for me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETE BEACH, Fla. \u2014\u00a0A child\u2019s footprints in concrete at an old St. Pete Beach house led to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372482,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1011,274,1190,2968,115,596,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,278,835],"class_list":["post-372481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-app-human-interest","tag-app-top-stories","tag-human-interest","tag-josh-rojas","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=372481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372481\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372482"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}