About Gulf County

Off the beaten path…….that’s a good thing!

Sure, our town is a little off the beaten path, but that’s the best part!  The remote nature of our area has preserved the best, and you may feel as if you’ve stepped back in time to a more relaxed and simple way of life.  We offer you an area that is steeped in history and beauty.  Talk about Southern Hospitality – Gulf County, you will find some of the friendliest people you have ever met.  Vacation homeowners, winter regulars, and returning visitors have slowly (we don’t do anything too fast) discovered our upbeat, down-home way of life, and are eager to share it with the new visitors.  We hope you’ll find a lifestyle here that will beckon you to return time and time again!  There is something for everyone from our beautiful beaches, pristine bay to the Country Music Singer and Songwriters Festival, Plein Air, where artists from around the country capture the beauty of our area, or our local Scallop Festival!

Cape San Blas, FL

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Cape San Blas, Florida.

Cape San Blas is part of a peninsula in Gulf County, Florida extending westward from the mainland of Florida, separating St. Joseph Bay to the north from the Gulf Of Mexico to the south. The St. Joseph Peninsula extends northward from the west end of Cape San Blas. It is approximately 10 miles south-southwest of the town of Port St. Joe, located at coordinates

 WikiMiniAtlas

29°39′49″N 85°21′20″W / 29.66361°N 85.35556°W / 29.66361; -85.35556.

History

Cape San Blas was home to a Confederate Saltworks where 150 bushels of salt a day were processed by evaporation of seawater. This halted in 1862 when a landing party from the Union ship, the USS Kingfisher, destroyed the saltworks.

Cape San Blas has had 4 lighthouses. The first, built in 1847, collapsed during a gale on August 23-24 of 1851. Congress appropriated $12,000 for a second brick tower lighthouse for the cape which was finally finished in November 1855, but it was destroyed on August 30, 1856, when another hurricane struck Cape San Blas. On May 1, 1858 a 3rd lighthouse was completed and lit. During the Civil War the lighthouse was not in commission but resumed operations July 23, 1865. Over the years, erosion began eating away at the lighthouse. In 1883 the 4th iron frame lighthouse was constructed.  Recently, the Cape San Blas lighthouse was removed from where she has overlooked the Gulf for 160 years and taken into Port St. Joe as a tourist attraction.  Very sad.

Indian Pass, Florida

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Indian Pass is a small area on the south coast of Gulf County, Florida, 8 miles south of Port St. Joe. It promotes itself as an uncrowded haven for sports fisherman and water enthusiasts, and for dining featuring locally caught oysters. A ferry provides access to a wildlife sanctuary on St Vincent Island. St. Vincent Island even has a red wolf breeding program.  Indian Pass is commonly thought of as one of the last bastions of “Old Florida” living, and at the end of the Pass, has a boat ramp and campground.

Indian Pass is located at 29°41’25” North, 85°15’51” West. The name refers to a natural pass leading from Apalachicola Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

Welcome to St. Vincent NWR

Credit: Monica Harris, USFWS

Credit: Monica Harris, USFWS

St. Vincent NWR is in Franklin County, Florida, is an undeveloped barrier island just offshore from the mouth of the Apalachicola River, in the Gulf of Mexico. The refuge is managed to preserve, in as natural a state as possible, its highly varied plant and animal communities. Ten separate habitat types have been identified: tidal marsh; freshwater lakes and streams; dunes dominated by live oak/mixed hardwood understory; scrub oaks; relatively pure stands of cabbage palm; and four different slash pine communities, each with its own unique understory species. St. Vincent is an important stop-off point in the Gulf of Mexico region for neo-tropical migratory birds. The island is a haven for endangered and threatened species, including bald eagles, sea turtles, indigo snakes, and gopher tortoises. Wood storks use the refuge during their migration. In addition, the refuge serves as a breeding area for endangered red wolves.

 Port St. Joe, established 1836

In 1832, men with “unbounded ambition and lust for gold” began building in the city of St. Joseph.  Progress was swift, and by 1839 one of the first steam railroads in the United States, the St. Joseph & Iola Railroad was completed.  The natural deep water port welcomed ships filled with fine goods from all over the world.  “St. Jo promised soon to rival Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans, both in trade and attractiveness.  Life there was idyllic….and the languidness of the southern summer was all over.”

In July, 1836, the thriving city was incorporated as a city and a “place of importance,” and the convention that framed the first Constitution for the Territory of Florida was held in December of 1838.  A dramatic change came in July of 1841 when a ship from the West Indies brought yellow fever, decimating the population.  Further, in 1844, a hurricane “buried beneath the sands of the sea, or swept to the four winds of heaven, all that remained of the proud young city of St. Joseph.”

Quotes attributed to historian George Mortimer West.

The area never ceased to be a favorite of sportsmen and tourists.  A bathing pier was a great attraction, with its springboards, high chutes, slides, trapeze rings and concession stands.  A new city, renamed Port St. Joe, became incorporated in 1913, and underwent rapid growth, with new docks, a saw mill, and lucrative lumber, turpentine and sugarcane industry.  During the 1920’s, Alfred DuPont and Edward Ball began accumulating property and created what is now known as the St. Joe Company.  Earl Sumner Draper, a landscape architect who revolutionized urban planning in the American South, was commissioned to create the “Draper Plan” for Port St. Joe.

Today, Port St. Joe continues to embrace and protect the legendary beauty of the area.  While preserving the legacy, careful planning incorporates modern amenities and a sense of luxury to co-exist with the allure of the water, the beaches and pristine environment.  We welcome visitors and new residents to experience and enjoy our unique area with its rich history and exciting future!

 A brief history of the Port of Port St. Joe

Port of Port St. Joe

Published: Thursday, August 8, 2013 at 10:26 AM.

(Editor’s note: With the Port of Port St. Joe Port Authority prepared to launch a public outreach/educational campaign in support of the port, this article, taken from historical documents and recent interviews, offers an overview of the rich history of the Port of Port St. Joe as well as its potential for the future.)

Port St. Joe is located on the site of a deep water natural harbor that has served twice as a thriving port over the last 180 years.

The first port development was during the 1830s and early 1840s.  The town of St. Joseph was formed by a group of wealthy promoters so that it could compete with Apalachicola for the export of large cotton crops from Georgia and Alabama as well as other locally-produced commodities such as naval stores and lumber.

Florida’s first railroad was built from Lake Wimico to St. Joseph Bay.  Much of the cargo that would normally be shipped to the Port of Apalachicola was now detoured into the lake where it was off loaded and transported by rail to ships docked at St. Joseph.

During this boom period between 1832 and 1842, the sea shore along St. Joseph was defined by long wharves extending almost 4000 feet into the sea.  The port also had a ship yard with many large warehouses scattered about. During the height of the first Port’s existence, it easily competed with well-established ports such as Charleston and New Orleans. Most of the exports from the Port at St. Joseph were shipped to New England or to overseas ports in Europe.

The port was the growth engine for Old St. Joseph, and a growth engine it was. In a few short years after establishing the port, the town of St. Joseph soared to a population of near 12,000 people and became the largest city in this new territory.  The city was so charming and well-known that in 1839 it hosted an assembly of statesmen for the purpose of establishing a state constitution.

The fate of St. Joseph and its port however had only a short existence. In the summer of 1841 a ship sailed from Cuba into the Port of Port St. Joseph.  Along with its cargo, it carried a passenger infected with a disease transmitted primarily from the bite of the mosquito.  It was the dreaded disease, yellow fever, and it quickly spread throughout the town.  Within a short month, the town was all but deserted.  Those the yellow fever did not kill escaped to faraway places, never to return to this former city of death.  The town of St. Joseph never recovered from the loss it sustained during this epidemic of yellow fever.  The long docks and the waterfront buildings that dotted the shore line began to deteriorate from lack of maintenance and upkeep.  It wasn’t long however before they were completely destroyed.

As told by historian Dale Cox, “In September 1844, a hurricane struck St. Joseph, destroying much of what remained of the community and driving away some of the last inhabitants.”

Except for occasional small supply ships in and out of the port, this natural deep water harbor remained idle and undeveloped until around 1910 when the railroad was again activated.  Piers jutting approximately 1,800 feet into the bay were constructed with rail road tracks so that ships could load and unload directly to the railroad cars parked alongside.

This design of the piers with tracks laid along the top was an efficient way to handle the incoming and outgoing cargo from the old sailing vessels as well as the new steam vessels that were increasingly taking their place.

The port again had considerable shipping activity which lasted until, as former postmaster Henry Drake noted, “The Wall Street crash of 1929 caused a sudden and sharp decline in foreign and domestic shipping.”

This decline caused financial hardship for the Apalachicola Northern Railroad and as a result, it was sold in 1933 to the Alfred I. DuPont Company.  DuPont purchased the railroad line which now extended from Chattahoochee to Port St. Joe with the intent of using its infrastructure to build a modern paper mill that would utilize the resources from over 200,000 acres of timber land that was purchased along with the existing rail line.

DuPont died in 1935 but, as a fulfillment of his vision, the St. Joe Paper Company was founded in 1936 as part of the Alfred I. du Pont Testamentary Trust.  The construction of the paper mill began in 1936 and was completed in 1938.

Also completed in February of 1938 were the new St. Joe Paper Company docks.  According to Henry Drake, they “were made of the latest type of sheet piling driven into the bay bottom”, and “the docks and wharves were capable of loading and unloading, simultaneously, five of the largest ocean-going boats in the Gulf of Mexico trade and still have room for a similar handling of two or more smaller and lighter draft vessels.”

In 1941, on a site just south of the paper mill, which is currently   “jetty park,”  the oil docks portion of the port was built along with a large tank farm that extended from the docks to where the current Centennial Bank is now located.

Petroleum products were shipped in from the oil fields of Louisiana and Texas in large tankers and barges. The petroleum was then pumped to Chattanooga, Tennessee and intermediate points via an eight-inch pipeline that was constructed during the same time the oil docks were being built.

By 1963 the petroleum distribution center had reached its life cycle and was therefore shut down.  In the early 70’s Hess oil purchased the facility and operated it until the mid to late 80’s when it was then shut down permanently.

From 1938 to the early 1970’s the Port of Port St. Joe enjoyed a brisk national and international trade.  In the 1950’s, at the height of the port activity, there were ships coming out of and going in to the port on a weekly basis. Beginning in the early 1970’s however, shipping from the port began a steady decline and by the mid 1980’s most shipping activity had ended.

By 1996 the natural deep water harbor and the extended channel that led to the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico experienced its last visit from a cargo ship.

Currently the port bulkhead and surrounding land sits idle awaiting a new birth.  The former major users of the port, the St. Joe Paper Mill and Box Plant, and the Arizona Chemical Company have been razed so that the land can be reclaimed for further use. Also, left behind is the essential infrastructure used to support their operations. Water, sewer, electricity and gas are in abundant supply. The AN short-line railroad that connected the Port to the main rail lines of the U.S will soon be repaired and back in service. A $750,000 state grant for an environmental and engineering study of the shipping channel, a requirement before any dredging can take place, was recently awarded to the Port St. Joe Port Authority with the St. Joe Company providing the required match of $250,000.

As a result of a recent formation of a strategic development partnership with the St. Joe Company, the Port of Port St. Joe and the surrounding land and infrastructure are now positioned to once again become a thriving port.

St. Joseph Bay – best scallops ever!!!!!!

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St. Joseph Bay, Florida

Map of Florida, highlighting Gulf County

St. Joseph Bay is a bay on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. state of Florida. The bay is located in Gulf County between Apalachicola and Panama City. Port St. Joe is located on St. Joseph Bay.

St. Joseph Bay is bounded on the east by the mainland, on the south by Cape San Blas, and on the west by the St. Joseph Peninsula. The north end of the bay is a relatively narrow opening to the Gulf of Mexico. The bay is approximately 15 miles long north to south, and 6 miles wide at its widest point. The St. Joseph Peninsula forms the T.H. Stone Memorial-St. Joseph Peninsula State Park, while the bay itself includes the St. Joseph Bay State Buffer Preserve and the St. Joseph Bay Aquatic Preserve.

Coastal Realty Group