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Even when giving personal information, Jeff Miller manages to slip in a bit of history. While noting he majored in math at the University of South Florida, Miller quickly added some historical data about his alma mater.

When USF opened, an area newspaper wanted to call it DeSoto University in honor of Hernando deSoto, an early explorer of the area, Miller said.

For someone whose curiosity about the past led to a hobby of examining World War II editions of The New York Times during college years, Miller has found the perfect pastime.

He has been revealing the history of West Pasco to its residents since 2000 via his Web site, www.fivay.org.

Fivay was a lumber mill town in what is now the Hudson area that existed from 1904 to 1912. It is near the intersection of S.R. 52 and Little Road.

Not gone unnoticed

Miller's efforts have not gone unnoticed by history buffs and researchers who need information on the area's past.

"That young man has done more to preserve West Pasco true history than any other person I know of," the official Port Richey historian, Frances Mallet said of Miller.

Mallet's family members were some of the earliest settlers of West Pasco. She works with Miller to verify historical information offered on his Web site.

Although maintaining the Internet site takes up a good bit of his time, Miller appears to enjoy both its historical and technical aspects. In fact, the self-described "techie" has managed to combine those two features in a number of other Web presences.

They include what he says is an internationally known Web page on the history of mathematics and the Web site for Gulf High School, on which he covers the New Port Richey school's history, among other areas of school life.

The Gulf High School site gets as many as 1,000 hits, or visits, a day and the Fivay site about 60, Miller notes.

Developed in 2000

It was through the Gulf Web page that the West Pasco site developed in 2000. Delving into the high school's history made Miller, a Gulf mathematics teacher, curious about area history.

At first, the Fivay site dealt only with West Pasco, but Miller has since expanded it to include all of Pasco County.

His collection of East Pasco history still is in its beginning states. Miller said.

In typical fashion, however, he is hard at work on gathering data. He has already scanned articles from the Dade City Banner and The Colonist, which later became the Zephyrhills News.

He will add information collected from those papers to an impressive collection of West Pasco history that provides telling details of the area's life years ago.

Browse Fivay's timeline and you will learn the paving of Main Street in New Port Richey began in 1925 and Magnolia Tavern, a new hotel, opened in Port Richey in 1922.

According to a newspaper advertisement, the tavern was "a family hotel at Port Richey within one block of the Cotee River near the Gulf. Fine fishing and hunting. Boats furnished. All home cooking -- everything new and clean."

Map is only proof

Miller also writes about the mystery of Pittitochoscolee, a town on the Pithlachascotee River that appeared on an 1859 map. Its name on the one map is almost the only proof that it ever existed, Miller said.

Solving those historical mysteries can involve many steps, as one of the latest conundrums on which Miller is now working illustrates.

In 1909, Sheldon Nicks was shot and killed at Fivay. It was always assumed, explains Miller, Sheldon was killed accompanying his father, Henry Nicks, marshal of Fivay, as the marshal tried to make an arrest.

Through researching old Tampa Morning Tribunes at the USF library, however. Miller ran across an article identifying Sheldon as a Hernando County deputy. "The article may be wrong in saying Hernando deputy because Fivay was in Pasco County," Miller says. (Pasco County was part of Hernando County until its incorporation in 1887.)

Through other research. Miller discovered in 1893, the town marshal of Tarpon Springs was also a Hillsborough County deputy sheriff, leading him to think town marshals might have formerly doubled as deputies. (At that time Pinellas County was a part of Hillsborough County. Pinellas County wasn't incorporated until 1911.)

Another possibility is the article might have mistakenly named Sheldon as a deputy.

Fallen lawmen

But if Sheldon were, indeed, a Pasco County deputy, his name belongs on the list of fallen lawmen that Miller keeps on the Fivay site.

Miller is now working with the Pasco County Sheriffs Office to determine the facts.

As in the Nicks case, Miller tries to research the material he puts on the site. "He doesn't take one person's word for anything," says historian Mallet.

Take, for instance, this sub-headline appearing in a 1926 edition of the New Port Richey Press: "Thomas Meighan and Paul Whiteman, Irving Berlin, Sam H. Harris Among Celebrities Who Have Purchased Here."

The Fivay site says researchers who examined deed records found only silent screen star Meighan among those mentioned owning property in New Port Richey.

Miller adds Berlin and others might have made deposits on property they never actually bought.

Over-the-top promotion

The headline might have been just another case of the paper's over-the-top promotion of the city. "They were basically doing good news, trying to boost the town," Miller says.

In keeping with that journalistic philosophy, when the local bank failed during The Great Depression, the paper barely mentioned it, Miller notes.

The paper also politely ignored the record of the 1938 Gulf High School football team.

Miller had to go to old Tampa Tribunes at the University of South Florida library to find that in a string of games, opponents outscored the hometown team 442 to 0.

The biggest loss in a single game that Miller found was 68 to 0.

The nickname of the team was the Cooties, which was probably a play on the Cotee River name.

"I think the term didn't have the negative connotation it does now," says Miller.

2,570-picture slide show

In addition to his work on the site. Miller has put together a self-conducted slide show of 2,750 pictures at the West Pasco Historical Society in New Port Richey showing the history of West Pasco.

Miller is quick to add the viewer needn't look at all the slides. "Just look at them until you get tired," he advises.

He has included many before-and-after pictures to make the experience more meaningful.

The stories some pictures tell are pared down to life's everyday rhythms.

One story involves the human tendency to make do with what you've got when in a pinch. Miller points to the letter c in a headline in the New Port Richey Press.

It is in a different font than the others. "They didn't have a c in that font," he says.

Much time expended

Sitting at the computer enlivening his slides with a plethora of details, Miller notes the large amount of time he spends on his historical projects. "I need to get a life," he jokes.

Fans of the West Pasco history he has made come alive would say he already has.