WHAT HURRICANE ELOISE did to the Florida Panhandle pales in comparison to what Hurricane Frederic did to the Alabama coast. It was not that the damage was greater (along the Gulf it was about the same); it was that Frederic drew not only a historic, but also a psychological dividing line in the sand. Since that September day when the storm hit, people along the beaches of Baldwin County have measured time as before and after Frederic.
Orange Beach and Gulf Shores had been hurt by the collapse of the real estate market, but not as badly as Florida, simply because investors were not as hungry for Alabama real estate as they were for developable land in the Panhandle. So condominiums came late to the Baldwin beaches. In the early 1970s a small, two-story complex was built down there. The units sold, even though the sellers had to convince the purchasers that there was nothing wrong with owning only to the center of each of the walls around them and that being governed by a condo association was not an infringement on their personal liberty. Once the papers were signed, the owners did what most condo owners did: stayed in their unit a few weeks out of the year and rented it the rest of the time. And rentals filled up. After years of promoting and hoping, the snowbirds finally came. Attracted by the mild climate and low cost of living, they took up residence in condos, cottages, and motels—especially those with kitchenettes—and in rv parks. Condos and motels were generally newer and better kept. The cottages were, to put it charitably, more rustic. On pilings sunk just deep enough to hold them, they were painted occasionally and patched up as needed. The son of one absentee owner recalled how his father once stopped the car on the way down to the coast to pick up a piece of lumber by the side of the road because it was “just what he needed” to repair the porch. But most of the cottages, condos, and motels located on the water had one thing in common: their builders had cleared the protective dunes and built on the sand. They soon wished they hadn’t.
By the late 1970s there were still only fifteen hundred or so year-round residents in Gulf Shores and fewer than that in Orange Beach. However, during the summer more than thirty thousand tourists visited the area—a lot of folks, but few enough to allow the communities to maintain a small-town, friendly atmosphere that out-of-towners, most from small towns themselves, seemed to like. Because so many of the same folks came down at the same time and stayed in the same places year after year, coastal reunions were frequent and it was possible to say, as one Alabama tourist magazine did, “No one is a stranger in Gulf Shores.”
This was the Redneck Riviera—a place where visitors and residents “enjoyed ideal beachfront living . . . with gentle surf at their door steps”—or so the brochures said. There was one chain motel, a few mom-and-pop hostelries, a souvenir shop or two, and the “nest of honky-tonks” that weren’t supposed to be there but were. There was that first condominium, the Hangout, cottages with absentee owners and homes for the permanent residents, some docks, boats big and small, and an infectious laid-back attitude. You could see signs of progress if you looked hard: a better sewage and water system, a new bridge over the Intracoastal Waterway, improved fire and police protection in Gulf Shores, and close to where the old Sand Castle cottage was located the concrete had been poured for the slab of a new, ten-unit complex, also called Sand Castle, which was to be the first condo development on the beach east of Alabama Highway 59, the road that brought most visitors to the shore. But that would have to wait. Hurricane Frederic would come first.
Ever since Hurricane Camille in 1969, Gulf Coast residents had been paying careful attention to storms. Better warning systems—hurricane hunters, weather satellites, and such—alerted folks to what was happening that September of 1979, as a storm named Frederic soaked the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, weakened over Cuba, reformed and intensified in the Gulf, then took aim at Alabama. As it got closer the word spread: board up and get out. Thus began what was, at the time, the largest evacuation in Gulf Coast history. Half a million residents from Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi packed what they could and headed inland. The escape routes were not ready for them. Mostly two-lane and rural, the roads quickly became clogged and in some places traffic stopped entirely. Apparently assuming that what brought folks in could take folks out, the states had done little to prepare for such a massive response to the call to leave. Remembering stories from Camille and more recently Eloise, few folks chose to ride it out. Coastal villages became ghost towns. Meanwhile, inland motels filled, upcountry folks opened their homes to the refugees, and communities away from the Gulf set up shelters in schools and churches. There evacuees waited for word from home.
The Gulf Shores Hangout before Frederic. Courtesy of the Mobile Press-Register Collection, Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama.
The news was not good. Folks who had stayed had known it was going to be bad just by watching the birds: one resident recalled how gulls “huddled in a triangular shape trying to stand against the wind, only to be knocked over like bowling pins.” Then they would “get up, reform in the triangle shape, another bird would take the point and within a few minutes it would start all over again.” Just before dawn on September 13, the eye of Frederic made landfall on Dauphin Island. Gulf Shores, some twenty miles to the east, was hit by the northeast side of the storm, the strongest, with 125 MPH sustained winds. Gusts up to 145 MPH were recorded before the gauge blew away. Even worse, Frederic brought with it a fifteen-foot storm surge. Water washed across Pleasure Island, damaging and destroying everything in its path. Beachfront homes were shattered and the debris was carried out into the Gulf and back into the lagoon. Buildings were picked up off their foundations, leaving behind the outlines of what had once been condominiums and motels. As for the birds, looking around after it was over observers reported that “there were not a lot of birds left.”
The Gulf Shores Hangout after Frederic, 1979. Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Collection, Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama.
From the air the Gulf Shores Holiday Inn appeared to have sustained minor damage, but on the ground inspectors found that on the first floor there were “only empty cubicles where rooms had been.” Gone were the front and back walls, gone were the windows, gone was the furniture. “The motel,” a writer from National Geographic noted, “resembled an abandoned honeycomb.” It was the same up and down the coast. In the motels and condos only a few units survived, and those had been gutted. As for the beach, the dunes that had not been leveled by developers were leveled by the storm. Tons of sand had been taken from the shore and deposited on the beach highway. Most roads, washed out or covered with debris, were impassable. The bridge across the Intracoastal survived, but that was one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dismal picture. Alabama’s Redneck Riviera was in ruins.
Then the refugees started coming back. It was not easy. Proof of residence or property ownership was required to get across the Intracoastal, not that there was much on the beach side to return to. National Guard troops patrolled the streets and roads and watched for looters, but there were few, for there was not much left to loot. For locals who had thought the coast was overdeveloped before the storm, who had complained of the first condo and the little commercial zone, Frederic “seemed a biblical and logical response” to man’s excesses. For others it was a deeply personal tragedy. Sand Castle, the cottage, and those like it were simply “erased” from the beach. A member of the family that owned Sand Castle recalled that it appeared “a tornado must have whipped through; not a piling, not even a dune remained.” When he was finally able to get to the site all he could do was dig out “a rusted lamp from the blank beach.” The rest of his family’s possessions, along with “the wreckage of a thousand other families,” floated somewhere out in the Gulf. It was surreal. There were dead fish in the trees and up on the porches of houses that survived. Freshwater lakes were flooded; the lagoon was full of all sorts of debris—power poles, downed wires, refrigerators, stoves, septic tanks, and mattresses. There was no drinking water, no ice, no telephones, and no electricity to run the gasoline pumps even where gas was available. What they had they shared. The owner of the Anchorage nightclub found a butane stove still working, so folks brought food and set up a community restaurant. Hazel’s cafe, a fixture in Orange Beach, was able to open and in the days after the storm served meals to over one thousand people—none more grateful than the Guardsmen.
Damage from Frederic, 1979. Courtesy of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Collection, Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, University of South Alabama.
The damage was less extensive in Orange Beach than in Gulf Shores, but it was bad enough. The state park was hit hard, private homes were knocked off their stilts, the Perdido Pass Bridge was put out of commission, and the Flora-Bama was wrecked. Because of the evacuation there was only one coastal casualty, a man who fell out of his boat and drowned near Pensacola. But in the aftermath the emergency room at South Baldwin Hospital treated a number of chainsaw accidents, which occurred when people who had never used chainsaws before tried to clear trees and limbs. Once the coast was declared a disaster area, aid was rushed in and the cleanup soon began. Then came the rebuilding. Then came the developers. Then came the change.
Timing, of course, is everything. People who had lost it all and wondered how they could afford to rebuild discovered that there were people with money (or good credit) who wanted to buy their little parcel of land and would pay well for it. So they sold. Then developers patched the parcels together into bigger parcels, raised construction money, and with that financing raised buildings that, because of the stricter building codes, were “higher and better” than their predecessors. It all seemed to happen so fast. A little over a decade later, in 1992, National Hurricane Center director Robert Sheets testified before Congress about the impact that storms had on the coast and, more important, about the recovery. “Prior to Hurricane Frederic,” he told the committee, “there was one condominium on Gulf Shores, Alabama. Most of the homes were single, individual homes behind the sand dunes. Today where there used to be one condominium, there are now at least 104 complexes—not units, complexes—on Gulf Shores, Alabama.”
Meanwhile, over to the east, Panama City Beach and Destin, recovered from Eloise, were experiencing similar growth. Federal disaster relief, low interest loans, and a recovering economy surely played a part in this, but what was happening there and eventually all along the coast was that investors and investment opportunities were converging in a perfect storm of economic activity that would redefine the Redneck Riviera. By the 1970s many of the parents of the baby boomers had retired. Houses they’d bought on the gi Bill back in the 1940s and 1950s were paid off, their kids were grown up and away, and the old folks were ready to relax. A goodly number of them decided to do it on the Gulf Coast. Meanwhile, their children were in their thirties and even their forties. Many had carved out careers, were earning good incomes, and were paying mortgages on homes bought when prices were low. They had kids about the same age as they were when their parents brought them to the beach in the 1950s and 1960s, and they wanted to carry on the tradition. Some had disposable income they wanted to invest, and there were developers who were ready and waiting to give them something to invest in.
Every investment situation had its personal twist, its individuality, but the result was usually the same. The investors were a mixed bag. There were retirees from the lower South, looking for condos they could buy, use, and rent to snowbirds. Then there were northern visitors who enjoyed the milder winter weather and low cost, but got tired of renting so they bought a unit to stay in during their season and rent out during the summer. Another group consisted of better-off boomers from the lower South who had come to the coast as children and wanted to recapture those wonderful days of their youth and share the experience with their kids, while picking up a little rental money on the side. Finally, there were boomers from the North who came down to visit the old folks in their “snowbird nest,” liked it, and purchased one of their own. The process was simple and the credit was easy. Little down, low payments, long mortgages, rental income, tax breaks—it was investment heaven.
And of course there were the renters. Middle- and lower-middle-class folks, from the deep South in the summer and from the north in the winter. They might not have a financial investment in the coast, but their personal investment bonded them to the beach by ties almost as strong as those who actually owned property there. Down for their two-week vacation, down with the kids, down for family reunions, down to spend a month or two in the rv park, or just down for a weekend to party at the Knight or the Bama, whatever the reason and however they were able to manage it, for the time they were there they considered themselves as much a part of the beach as anyone. And beach folks welcomed them with open arms, or at least some of them did.
This wave of immigrants, transients, and investors had much in common with the tourists and investors who had come down after World War II—much, but not everything. Though just as white, they were a little more affluent, a little better educated, and, at the upper end of the socioeconomic scale, a little more sophisticated than their predecessors. All that notwithstanding, be they summer guests or snowbirds, they came to the coast because they could do things there that they could not do at home—even just avoid the snow.
But the beach was also beginning to attract more folks who could not be called rednecks and would not want to be. One of the first resorts created by and for this group was Pinnacle Port. Begun in the early 1970s, it was nestled between the Gulf and a lake out at the far west end of the Panama City beach strip. When completed the $60 million project would be a world unto itself—upscale condominiums, elaborate landscaping, winding roads, indoor and outdoor pools for the folks who love the beach but don’t care for sand and salt water (yes, there are some), tennis, docks, fine dining, a lounge, and even a small store in case a visitor wanted to cook a little something back at the condo or buy a souvenir. About the only thing missing was a place to “juke.” If they wanted to do that, visitors would have to go back toward Panama City. Young folks did. The older, more settled ones had a drink at the bar, a nice meal, and maybe a walk on the beach so the little kids (or grandkids) could chase ghost crabs. If the youngsters pestered them enough they might take them to Miracle Strip Park, where the amusements so loved by the less sophisticated were clustered, but otherwise those things were kept comfortably at a distance. The people who came to Pinnacle Port came to the coast for many reasons, but rednecking it up was not one.
Something similar was happening at about the same time just to the east of Destin, where developers were going to work on some two thousand acres of land between the Gulf and the bay that once belonged to Arkansas governor Winthrop Rockefeller. They called their project Sandestin. Promoters claimed that they were out to create a community that was like what Destin was before it was transformed to a tourist destination, one that looked as if it had grown out of a New England fishing village (a nod to the origins of Destin’s founders). What they created instead was a sprawling complex of hotels, condominiums, golf courses, town centers, and attractions that were designed for the upscale and affluent. “If you’ve heard the name ‘Redneck Riviera,’ take note,” the development publicist announced when the site was up and selling. “Sandestin brings new style to northwest Florida.”
Pinnacle Port, the prototype of gated Gulf Coast resorts. Courtesy of Bay County Public Library, Panama City, Fla.
The Destin that Sandestin did not want to be was also taking shape. Not long after the damage from Hurricane Eloise was cleared away, the Destin Log noted that the community was unique because future growth was unlimited and “plans to handle the growth are virtually nonexistent.” It was as if state and local government were conspiring with developers to turn the coast over to them. In 1979 the Florida Legislature appropriated $4 million for the state to buy 1.3 miles of beachfront just east of Destin that belonged to local landowner Burney Henderson. Community leaders and developers lobbied against it and Governor Bob Graham vetoed the measure. But the developers did not get the land they wanted. Henderson held on and waited.
Despite that disappointment, developers were doing just fine. In an even more development-friendly move the Florida Department of Natural Resources pushed the “setback line”—the line beyond which no one can build—closer to the water, which allowed construction on narrow strips of dune south of Highway 98. In time this would make way for the “wall of condos” that would line the Destin beaches and cut off inland folks from the sand and the water. Also, by limiting access to the beach, these developments would drive up beachfront prices for those with money to pay. Where once a beach cottage was affordable for people like my grandmother and aunt—a retired state worker and an officer in the military—by the early 1980s these folks were priced out of that market. At the same time, beaches that were once considered open to the public were being declared private by the beachfront motels, condominiums, and homeowners. In 1972, faced with a similar situation, Californian voters approved a measure that declared that “development shall not interfere with public right to access to the sea.” Florida made no such declaration, nor did Alabama.
Meanwhile, the Destin real estate market boomed and tourists kept coming, and because of this the Florida Panhandle and the Alabama coast felt less of the impact of the recession of 1981–82 than the rest of the nation. One realtor recalled running an ad in the early 1980s that read, “Termites holding hands is the only reason this house is still standing,” and the property sold within twelve hours. Since there was not enough mainland property to satisfy the hunger, Destin area developers began to cast ravenous eyes at Holiday Isle, which most folks considered an undevelopable “sand pile, inhabited by a few birds and surrounded by water.” The island protected Destin’s fishing fleet. With the Gulf beaches on one side and the harbor on the other, Holiday Isle was a popular destination for teenagers, who boated across for clandestine parties and romantic trysts. I recall more than once looking at the island as our boat left the harbor and thinking, that there is one stretch of beach that can never be developed. The island was too narrow, the sand shifted with every storm—who would risk building there? Little did I know, for in the late 1970s and early 1980s what would be described as a struggle of “genuine epic proportion” would begin over who would control the future of Holiday Isle.
In the 1970s a group of developers bought portions of the island and began trying to get permits for roads and buildings, but without much success. In the meantime storms buffeted the island and offshore sandbars were pushed in to add roughly sixty valuable new acres to the shoreline. Beaches do not stand still; in most cases there is a natural shift of sand from east to west, though storms and tides can alter this significantly. Sand can be eroded and carried out into the Gulf, but sand can also be pushed in and added to existing land by the process of accretion. That happened on Holiday Isle. The question was, whose land was it? The developers who owned the beachfront to which the new land was attached said it was theirs, and in 1981 a group of them sued the state in an effort to get clear title and the right to develop it. They argued that nature can give just as surely as it can take away. The state attorney general, claiming the new land belonged to Florida, threatened to countersue. Meanwhile members of the Okaloosa County Commission argued that the developers must not own the land because they had paid no taxes on it. What followed, according to one observer, was a convoluted tale of “protagonists, front men, surprising twists, unknown ingredients, cover-ups, etc.” that would make for a “first rate novel” one day. Finally, development-friendly legislators adjusted the rules so the island infrastructure could be built and condos could be constructed along the shore—a shore that moved with each new storm. The saga of Holiday Isle was far from over.
While developers, the community, and the state were in a tussle over Holiday Isle, folks who lived along the coast were coming to the realization that while county seat politicians were not watching their every move, they were not ignoring them entirely, and the residents didn’t like the attention they were getting. When it came to collecting taxes the good old boys in the courthouse made sure the coast paid its fair share, and more. Roughly half of the revenue collected in Walton and Okaloosa counties came from south of Choctawhatchee Bay, but that region got few if any of the services enjoyed by the rest of the county. The tourist who paid the sales taxes and absentee property owners who could not qualify for homestead exemptions did not vote in local elections, so the politicians put the services where the voters were—inland. As early as 1976 there was talk of creating a Special Tax District for south Walton County, with the money to be allocated for increases in police and fire protection and emergency medical assistance, but nothing came of it. A few years later frustrated beach residents seriously considered asking the state to let them secede and create “Dune County.” It didn’t happen, but the controversy did raise the issue and expose a tension between the two sides of the bay that would only grow with time.
Gulf Shores and Orange Beach had the same problem, though Gulf Shores made up for the county’s neglect by incorporating and providing services such as police, water, and sewage on its own. When the national economy dipped in the early 1980s, construction crews in Gulf Shores were kept employed building city buildings—a civic center, city hall, and public library—plus a new post office. Rebuilding the state park after Frederic also created jobs. At the same time the south Baldwin area got its first retirement village/golf community for those who wanted to be near the coast year round. By the middle of the decade Gulf Shores was operating like any small city would. A leash law and a sign ordinance were passed, the community pool was expanded, more paramedics were hired, and a new sewage treatment plant went on line. This last project was particularly important, for one of the reasons Gulf Shores got most of the initial condo development after Frederic was that it had a sewer system that reached down to the beachfront. Moreover, since the beach road was set back one hundred feet or more from the water, there was gulf-front property wide enough to accommodate a large development. In short, Gulf Shores was a developer’s dream. Developers built more than condos: commercial real estate boomed. A Winn Dixie supermarket opened a couple of blocks inland and small shops clustered around it. What a writer from National Geographic called a “vacation colony” in the days before Frederic was catching the attention of more and more “destination vacation” families who wanted a spot within easy driving distance of home that had amusements enough to occupy their time while they were there. Gulf Shores was becoming that.
The market was hot. Though this was before the days of “flipping”—buying property to resell quickly rather than use—real estate agents were reporting that they “were selling the same piece of property three or four times in one week.” But when the buyer who wanted the land got it, the property did not sit vacant. Until 1982, contractors could still use wood pilings and frames for their buildings instead of the more expensive and more time-consuming steel and masonry that would later be required, so small structures—condos, motels, and cottages—could be put up quickly, and they were. Orange Beach soon had its sewer system in place, and in 1981 it got its first condo development, the Breakers. Kenny Stabler bought Unit 12, his jersey number. Because there was so much selling going on, more and more people got into the real estate business. As they did, Gulf Shores and Orange Beach began to experience what other developing coastal communities had experienced before them—a disconnect between what developers and their agents said they were creating and what actually ended up on the ground. In 1980, members of the Kaiser family moved to the coast from upland Baldwin County to open a real estate office. Having grown up “exploring the beaches and back bays of south Baldwin County,” one of them told of how he and his siblings wanted to help people “discover the same treasures [they] had found in their childhood.” What they did instead was take over the management of Summer House on Romar Beach, one of Gulf Shores’ first “upscale condo development projects,” leaving one to wonder if purchasers could find in that high-rise the “same treasures” the Kaiser kids had discovered in the “beaches and back bays” when they were younger. Not that it mattered much to the people who bought the condos or rented them from their owners. Exploring beaches and back bays was not high on their list of priorities.
As far as priorities go, getting local government in place was moving up the list kept by some coastal folks. Though most residents loved the tourists and the money they brought in, and though they loved the developers who brought jobs and increased the revenue flow, there were those who were less than pleased with the way the community was changing. So, according to a locally produced history of the region, as a “means for preservation and conservation of a way of life born of pioneers whose lives revolved around the fishing industry,” Orange Beach citizens banded together and in 1984, voted to incorporate. But it was too late. That genie was out of the bottle. In fact, in one of those ironic twists, incorporation may have hastened the end of the way of life supporters hoped to preserve. While most incorporation supporters were pleased to have a local police force to control the activities of those whose approach to leisure and labor were associated with redneckery, they found that better infrastructure and better services led to developments that appealed to people who did not come to the coast to preserve an old way of life but to create a new one. As new businesses opened to cater to the upscale, more discerning tourists, old businesses adjusted not just because they wanted to survive but also because they wanted to prosper. For better or for worse, incorporation did not preserve and conserve, at least not the way many of its advocates hoped it would.
Off to the east, Destin also incorporated, but it took two tries to settle the issue. More than most coastal communities (with the exception of Orange Beach), Destin, with its independent captains and crews and its doit-on-my-own attitude, was leery of government and, especially, the taxes that were needed to run it. So in 1982, when local boosters put the question to a vote, incorporation lost, 1,251 to 796. But in the next two years the tide turned, slightly. In 1983–84, condo sales in Destin doubled to over $200 million and growth reached the point that a moratorium was declared on sewer connections. Destin’s own “raffish Rotarians” and “hard-handed matrons” could see development coming to a screeching halt if more was not done to accommodate growth, and they knew that inland interests were reluctant to help the coast, even though it was a cash cow for their projects. So in 1984 a second vote was held and this time incorporation won, barely. Although it would take a while before the city could know for sure just how much property was included within its limits, the vote opened the door for more development, and developers flocked in. The deal was basically this: The city would take tax money generated by the growth and provide its citizens and visitors with a library, a community center, fire and police protection, and water and sewer services. In return, along with the money, developers would provide the city’s citizens and visitors with accommodations, recreational shopping, recreational dining, fern bars and water parks, golf courses of the eighteen-hole and putt-putt varieties, resort hotels, and conference centers. Most folks felt it was a good trade-off—most, but not all.
Then there was the beach, which was what most people came for. In 1982, in what would be one of the most significant moves for the future of Destin, the State of Florida finally bought Burney Henderson’s 1.3-mile stretch of shoreline and the undeveloped land behind it, for $13.1 million. Illustrating how land value in the area had risen, this parcel was essentially the same one that the state was set to purchase for $4 million in 1979, only to have the plan vetoed by Governor Graham. Three years later Graham’s reservations and opposition were apparently overcome, for the deal went through. In the years to come, as a “wall of condos” lined the Destin coast and separated citizens from the shore, the city would have a public beach for inland folks to visit. But will it be enough?
Meanwhile, what was taking place in Fort Walton Beach stood in contrast to what was occurring in Destin, in Panama City Beach, and on the beaches of south Alabama. Although Okaloosa Island had its share of motels, amusements, and condominiums, back in the town itself things were very different. During the 1950s and 1960s, airmen from nearby Eglin Field moved into the city, where houses were cheap and the setting was that of a community instead of a military facility. They liked the town and the people in it, so when they were transferred, as men and women in the armed services regularly were, instead of selling their houses they kept them, fully expecting to return and retire when their tour of duty was over. While away they lived on base and rented their Fort Walton homes to other servicemen and their families. So, when they retired and returned, they came home to a house that was paid for, a low homestead-exempted tax bill, and all the amenities Eglin Air Force Base had to offer. In short, they had it made.
What benefitted these retirees did not necessarily benefit the city of Fort Walton Beach. While communities around them promoted tourism and development as a means to progress and prosperity, residents of the city wanted tourists to stay out on the island, away from them. This was not uncommon. As one observer explained, “Retired people don’t want tourism. They don’t want the traffic; they don’t want any part of this. . . . They don’t want the kids, they want to be left alone.” Military retirees added an additional twist to the tale. They didn’t take part in community affairs. Retirees from the business world came from a culture where executives were expected to join community organizations and participate in their activities; the military had no such expectation of its officers. So when they retired near a base such as Eglin, the base was where they focused their attention. The on-base resources retirees enjoyed, such as the px, the officers and non-com clubs, the commissary, and the medical facilities, competed with local businesses and limited the revenue the city could raise. Why support building public parks, athletic fields, and swimming pools when you have Eglin’s recreational facilities at your disposal?
Therefore, what developed in Fort Walton, and to a lesser degree in the Panama City area around Tyndall Air Force Base and in Pensacola, was a closed community, socially and economically insular, that resisted growth in the 1970s and became downright hostile to it in the 1980s, when Destin was booming. As a result Fort Walton changed little in size, wealth, or attitude during the years when other coastal communities were expanding and changing. It was in Fort Walton that Panhandle developers confronted for the first time an organized “no-growth” movement led by residents who were a far cry from the “pirates with cash register eyeballs” who were calling the shots in other communities. So the developers sought and found opportunities elsewhere. Fort Walton Beach lost businesses while other communities gained them, lost services such as a new hospital, and found itself down the list of places where people with new ideas for making money would settle. Instead it was Mary Esther, the tiny community just to the west of Fort Walton, that offered businesses and developers the support they wanted to settle there and the help they needed to expand. A no-growth, “not in my backyard” philosophy meant that Fort Walton would be largely free of the clutter, congestion, and glitz found in Destin. It also meant that residents of Fort Walton had to drive to the Santa Rosa County Mall in Mary Esther to do much of their shopping.
As for the rest of the coast, between Panama City and Destin the new beach highway 30-A was open, and traffic flowed slowly through Seagrove, around Grayton, through Blue Mountain Beach, to where 30-A connected with U.S. 98. But most of the land along the route was undeveloped, and without county infrastructure support, it was likely to remain so. The local wells supplied communities with often-foul-tasting water (but it made good coffee) and septic tanks were the sewage system. Easy access to undeveloped and unpatrolled stretches of beach opened the way for activities unknown, or at least unreported, in earlier days. Near the eastern end of 30-A the local gay community commandeered a stretch of lonely coast and made it their own. A few hundred yards off the road and hidden from sight by scrub and dunes, it became known variously as the “queer beach” for its homosexual clientele and the “nude beach” for the way most people who came there dressed, or didn’t. Heterosexual swimmers and sunbathers were also welcome and many came. Complaints were few and law enforcement generally left well enough alone.
And the weather was good.
For the expanding, growing, developing Redneck Riviera the 1980s was a decade largely free of storms. The only difficult year was 1985, when four hurricanes—Danny, Elena, Juan, and Kate—made themselves known along the coast, but none caused anything close to the damage wrought by Eloise and Frederic. To the contrary, in some places the storms actually built up the beach, and along the shoreline a series of secondary dunes developed in front of the dunes and bluffs that sat inland. Even in Gulf Shores and Destin, where condominiums crowded the water, low dunes with sea oats seemed to pop up and promise that condos would be protected if a real storm approached. Uninterrupted by rough weather, construction continued at a record pace so that by the end of the decade it seemed that the Redneck Riviera was being transformed into something like Miami Beach.
