Florida Panhandle

Location of Florida's Emerald Coast

Beach in Destin

Emerald Coast, a term coined in 1983,[4] refers in general to the beaches and coastal resorts from Pensacola to Port St. Joe,[Emerald_Coast 1] but is sometimes used to refer, by extension, to the Panhandle as a whole, especially west of the Apalachicola. Earlier designations include "Playground of the Gulfcoast" and the "Miracle Strip", especially for the area between Fort Walton Beach and Panama City.[5] Coastal regions of the following counties (if not the entirety of the counties themselves) are usually included when referring to the Emerald Coast:

• Escambia County
• Santa Rosa County[Emerald_Coast 2]
• Okaloosa County[Emerald_Coast 3][Emerald_Coast 4]
• Walton County[Emerald_Coast 5]

Coastal portions of Bay County are also regularly included when referring to the Emerald Coast, but with somewhat less regularity than the four aforementioned counties listed above.

Florida's Forgotten Coast

The Forgotten Coast is a trademarked term coined in the early 1990s[6] used to refer to the coastal portion of the Florida Panhandle extending from Mexico Beach or southeastern Bay County on the Gulf of Mexico to St. Marks on Apalachee Bay. It is usually not considered a part of the Emerald Coast, which lies directly adjacent to the west.[7] Coastal regions of the following counties (if not the entirety of the counties themselves) are usually included when referring to the Forgotten Coast:

• Gulf County
• Franklin County
• Wakulla County
• Small portions of Bay County

Throughout the 19th century the Panhandle was sparsely populated, dotted in places with small farming communities, none of which had as many as a thousand residents. Many Panhandle residents had, in fact, migrated to the area from Alabama and had relatives there; it was also easier to trade with and travel to southern Alabama than to reach East Florida by slow, arduous journey across the thick cypress swamps and dense pine forests of the Panhandle. It was natural for West Floridians to feel that they had more in common with their nearby neighbors in Alabama than with the residents of the peninsula, hundreds of miles away.[8]

In 1821, Pensacola was the only city (in 19th-century terms) in West Florida, with a population estimated to be about 3,000. In the 1850 census, the enumerated population of Pensacola was 2,164 (including 741 slaves and 350 "free Negroes").[9]

During the course of the century, proposals for ceding the Florida counties west of the Apalachicola River to Alabama were often raised:

• In 1811, while Florida was still a Spanish possession, American settlers in the territory sent a petition to Congress asking to be incorporated into the Mississippi Territory, which at that time included present-day Alabama.[10] (See West Florida article.)
• In 1819, the constitutional convention of Alabama asked Congress to include West Florida in their new state.[10]
• In 1822, only a year after the U.S. acquired the entire Florida territory from Spain, residents of West Florida sent a petition to the U.S. House of Representatives asking that their section be annexed to Alabama, and Alabama Senator John Williams Walker also promoted the idea.[9]
• In 1826, the Pensacola Gazette published a number of letters advocating annexation to Alabama, though the editor remarked that some Pensacolians opposed the idea.[9]
• In 1840, a public meeting in Pensacola produced a demand that West Florida be united with Alabama. In the same year, the territorial Legislature notified Congress that it opposed allowing Alabama to annex West Florida, but in 1844, the year before statehood, the Legislature reversed its stance and asked that West Florida be separated.[9]
• In 1856, advocates of annexation were able to get a bill passed by the Legislature authorizing a referendum on the issue, but Governor James E. Broome vetoed the measure. The Pensacola Gazette reported that "annexation is desired by a large majority of the people" of the area.[9]
• In 1858, the Alabama Legislature unsuccessfully tried to open negotiations with Florida on the subject.[10]
• The annexation issue was eclipsed by the Civil War and the war's effects on the region, but in 1868, with Pensacola now connected by the Panhandle's sole railroad line to the Alabama cities of Mobile and Montgomery, the issue came to a head again and was finally put to a vote of the people. In that year, the Alabama Legislature approved a joint resolution authorizing their Governor to negotiate with the Governor of Florida about the annexation of West Florida. An offer of one million dollars in Alabama state bonds, paying 8 percent interest for thirty years, was included. Both states appointed commissioners to make detailed recommendations on the matter.[11]
• On November 2, 1869, a referendum was held in the West Florida counties (except Jackson, which was in the throes of bloody racial violence[12]), with a result of 1162 to 661 in favor of annexation.[8] However, political objection developed in Alabama to the high price, and the Legislature took no action on the results of the referendum.[10][13]
• In 1873, a similar proposal was made in the Alabama Legislature, which the state senate approved, though it did not pass a separate proposal to finance the measure by selling all of Alabama's territory west of the Tombigbee River, including the city of Mobile, to Mississippi.[14] However, nothing came of this action.
• In 1901, Alabama made yet another offer when the Legislature appointed a commission to negotiate with Florida about annexation, but this attempt, too, was unsuccessful.[10]

The building of the Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad, completed in 1883, finally linked Pensacola and the Panhandle solidly with the rest of the state and ended the region's isolation, although from time to time during the twentieth century there were still occasional calls for annexation that generated some public discussion but no legislative action.

In the last quarter of the century, hurricanes that directly struck the area and caused significant damage included Hurricane Eloise in 1975, Hurricane Kate in 1985, and Hurricane Erin and Hurricane Opal, both in 1995.

The area was a prime target of the March 1993 Storm of the Century.

The Panhandle suffered direct hits from Hurricane Ivan in 2004 and Hurricane Dennis in 2005. Ivan was the most disastrous, making landfall near Gulf Shores, Alabama, with 120 mile-per-hour (193 km/h) winds and a 14-foot (4.3 m) storm surge that devastated Perdido Key and Santa Rosa Island, wrecked the Interstate 10 bridge across Escambia Bay, and destroyed thousands of homes in the region, some as far away as 20 miles (32 km) inland.

On June 23, 2010, oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill landed on Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach, damaging the fishing and tourism industries, and prompting a massive clean-up effort.[15]

On October 10, 2018, the Panhandle suffered a direct hit from Hurricane Michael, with winds as high as 160 mph. Michael was one of only four category 5 hurricanes to ever hit the US mainland.[16] Thousands of homes were destroyed, and apartment rents in Panama City increased, with a $500 apartment renting for $1000 in 2019. Recovery from Hurricane Michael was not complete in June 2019, and disaster relief for the Panhandle remained stalled in Congress.[17]

Interstate 10 is the only interstate highway in the Panhandle, connecting the extreme west with North Florida and Jacksonville. Other older east–west routes include U.S. Highway 90 and U.S. Highway 98. Important north–south routes west of the Apalachicola River include U.S. Highway 29, U.S. Highway 331, and U.S. Highway 231, all linking to Alabama and Interstate 65. State Road 20 stretches from Niceville to Tallahassee.

Freight service is provided by the Class III Florida Gulf & Atlantic Railroad, which acquired most of the CSX main line from Pensacola to Jacksonville on June 1, 2019. (For the history of this line, see Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad.)

Passenger service ended with the creation of Amtrak in 1971, but was revived with the extension of the Sunset Limited to Orlando beginning in 1993; however, passenger service was discontinued after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. Other regional short-line railroads serving the Panhandle are the Alabama and Gulf Coast Railway (formerly BNSF Railway, ex-Frisco Railway), the Bay Line Railroad, and the AN Railway.

Major airports include:

• Pensacola International Airport
• Destin-Fort Walton Beach Airport
• Northwest Florida Beaches International Airport
• Tallahassee International Airport
• Bob Sikes Airport
• Destin Executive Airport
• DeFuniak Springs Airport
• Apalachicola Regional Airport
• Perry-Foley Airport