Towns to Add to a New Port Richey Trip

How the 1920s Land Boom Shaped New Port Richey

New Port Richey incorporated on 24 October 1924. The younger, upriver twin of Port Richey, named for settler Aaron M. Richey. Timing was no accident. The town rode the 1920s Florida land boom hard, courting wealthy residents and film people with one aim: a Hollywood colony. Silent-film star Thomas Meighan built a house on the river in 1928 and wintered here, lending his name to the project. A theatre named for him opened in 1926. For a few years, the town had a genuine marquee draw. Then the boom collapsed. The ambition ended nearly as fast as it began. What remains isn’t a failed town—it’s a frozen one. The scale of the dream still shows in the bones of its early landmarks.

Sims Park: The First Act of a City

The first official act of the newly incorporated city council, on 2 December 1924, was to accept a park donated by George Sims. Sims Park remains the town’s quiet centerpiece along the river. An ordinary, pleasant green space by most measures. But its origin story tells you everything. Before the city had a budget, a street grid, or a functioning government, it had a park. That priority speaks to the boosters’ vision: a resort town for wealthy winter visitors, not a working port or farming depot. Today, walking its paths gives you the same water view Meighan saw from his house. It costs nothing to imagine the rest.

The Meighan Theatre: A Marquee Without a Movie

The Meighan Theatre, opened in 1926 and named for the silent-film actor, is the most direct artifact of the Hollywood ambition. Built at the boom’s peak, when New Port Richey was actively recruiting film people, it was the town’s statement of intent: a proper venue for a proper colony. Then the money and visitors dried up. The theatre never became the anchor of a thriving entertainment district. It still stands—a relic of a future that never arrived.

What New Port Richey's Census Data Says Today

The census figures sketch a town that never fully became its dream. Population: 17,057. Median age: 53.5 years—an older town, not a young boomtown. Median household income: $46,160. Median home value: $164,600. Both modest by Florida standards. Of the 9,423 total housing units, 718 are held for seasonal or recreational use, and 1,367 sit vacant. That’s a town built for winter visitors who, in large numbers, never came to stay. Unemployment sits at just 2.8 percent. 15.7 percent of residents hold a bachelor’s degree or higher. So it isn’t struggling, exactly. It’s quiet. The seasonal homes and older median age suggest a place that settled into a slower rhythm after the boom—and never picked the pace back up.

Nearby Towns with Festivals Worth the Drive

If New Port Richey is the Hollywood that wasn’t, nearby towns offer the festivals that kept going. Not better or worse—just different, with their own annual commitments to community life.

Those towns kept their seasonal rhythms alive with festivals, rodeos, and fairs. New Port Richey has Sims Park and the Meighan Theatre instead—not events, but monuments to a moment. That’s the trade. The festival towns are busy on their weekends. New Port Richey is a place you visit to read the quiet between the lines. The story behind the Meighan Theatre and Thomas Meighan’s connection to this town is the story of a place that aimed for the movies and got a park and a name on a marquee instead. What you can see today is the 1920s boom era in its original form: the park, the river, the theatre shell, and the space where a colony was supposed to grow. Not what the boosters planned. But a more honest monument than most Florida towns ever get.