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Forgotten Coast
Florida's Forgotten Coast is the most spectacular and
pristine in the country. Its natural beauty has been
preserved through a series of planned and unplanned
events.
The Forgotten Coast takes in a stretch of coastline
from St. Marks Wildlife Refuge east through Mexico Beach
to the west. This stretch of coastline crosses four
counties rich in history, Wakulla, Franklin, Gulf and
Bay.
The first inhabitants in the area were the Creek and
Seminole Indians. Often, people walking along the shorelines
of canals, bays, and creeks still find Indian artifacts
such as tools, arrowheads, and pottery fragments.
The first Europeans to discover the Forgotten Coast
were in the Panfilo de Narvarez expedition of 1528 that
followed the Panhandle coastline. By the mid-17th century,
the Spanish occupied the Gulf coastal area with a fort
at St. Marks in Wakulla County at the eastern end of
the Forgotten Coast.
 Crawfordville
is the county seat of Wakulla County. The county has
a Rails to Trails park stretching from just south of
Tallahassee to St. Marks on the coast. This trail follows
the bed of the historic St. Marks railroad. Many of
this county's woods were home to our native Americans
providing abundant wildlife and many natural lakes for
fishing. Much of these forests are apart of the Apalachicola
National Forest.
The center of the Forgotten Coast is Franklin County,
just west of Wakulla County. The county seat, Apalachicola,
is at the mouth of the Apalachicola River and at the
head of the Apalachicola Bay. The location alone led
to a rapid commercial trading boom that resulted in
the city becoming an important cotton shipping port
in the 1800s, and the necessity for a lighthouse to
be constructed on nearby St. George Island to serve
as a navigational aid for the increased boat traffic.
The shift in transportation methods in the mid-1800s
from river shipping to trains focused regional and national
attention away from the Forgotten Coast.
 As
early as the 1910's, the harvesting of the Apalachicola
Bay oysters became a mainstay industry for the area.
The commercial shrimping, fishing, and oystering industry
is still one of the most active in the state.
The next county west is Gulf County with Port St.
Joe as its county seat. Port St. Joe was the site of
the State's first Constitutional Convention in 1838.
The city has the State Constitution museum with exhibits
relating to the drafting of the Constitution, as well
as other major historical events of the city, i.e. the
yellow fever epidemic and the devastating tidal wave
around the turn of the century.
 In
the late 1800's the St. Joe Paper Company purchased
thousands of acres of land and planted pine trees to
supply the paper company's need for pulp wood. Recycling
of paper products and new technology for producing paper
has diminished the demand for the growing and harvesting
of the pine trees. St. Joe is now known as St. Joe Development
Corporation and plans to refocus its activities.
The pine forests, however, controlled the availability
of land in the Forgotten Coast, and development occurred
in other more accessible areas.
Environmental laws and policies played a key role
in preserving the Forgotten Coast over the past 25 years.
While other areas across Florida welcomed large-scale
development, local policies here were designed to protect
the seafood fisheries and industry. The Forgotten Coast
used Federal, State, and local development restrictions
to enhance the pristine qualities of the area.
The Forgotten Coast offers a low-density, environmentally
protected area that is unequaled in beauty.
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