There's a New Way to See Florida Through Tom Petty's Eyes

Tom Petty wouldn’t have been Tom Petty without the city of Gainesville, Florida. It’s his hometown and played a formative role in his development as a musician. In the years since his 2016 death, Gainesville has honored Petty by naming a park in his memory — but that’s not the only destination Petty fans can visit in said Florida city to explore Tom Petty’s life and times.

As Kristine Villarroel reports in The Gainesville Sun, retired journalism professor Shawn Murphy has made it his mission to assemble a sprawling list of local sites of interest to Petty enthusiasts. The spots listed on the Tom Petty Trail website are absurdly comprehensive, covering everything from Petty’s formative years to spots around town that Petty alluded to in his lyrics.

If you’d like to visit the studio where Petty’s early-1970s band Mudcrutch played a session on WUFT, for instance, the Tom Petty Trail has you covered. There’s also an entire section dedicated to murals and tributes to Petty. Petty is also not the only iconic musician covered on the site; Murphy also has a separate section dedicated to another beloved singer and guitarist with ties to Gainesville: Bo Diddley.

Murphy recalled that he began work on the project in earnest after being diagnosed with cancer several years ago. (He is now cancer-free.) The project is also constantly being updated. “I’m constantly learning about new places, and I can’t stop,” Murphy told the Sun.

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While the Tom Petty Trail isn’t necessarily an “official” landmark in the manner of, say, New Jersey’s Anthony Bourdain Food Trail — at least not yet — it’s still an impressive and comprehensive guide to the sites where Tom Petty played formative gigs and found inspiration. And if you’re going to be in the vicinity of Gainseville, it looks like an excellent way to chart out a Petty-centric itinerary.