Florida panhandle


The Florida panhandle is the northwestern part of the U.S. state of Florida. It is a salient roughly long, bordered by Alabama on the west and north, Georgia on the north, and the Gulf of Mexico to the south. Its eastern boundary is arbitrarily defined. It is defined by its southern culture and rural demographics in contrast to urbanized central and southern Florida, as well as closer cultural links to Alabama and Georgia. Its major communities include Pensacola, Navarre, Destin, Panama City Beach, and Tallahassee.
As is the case with the other eight U.S. states that have panhandles, the geographic meaning of the term is inexact and elastic. References to the Florida panhandle always include the ten counties west of the Apalachicola River, a natural geographic boundary, which was the historic dividing line between the British colonies of West Florida and East Florida. These western counties also lie in the Central Time Zone, while the rest of the state is in the Eastern Time Zone. References to the panhandle may also include some or all of eleven counties immediately east of the Apalachicola known as the Big Bend region, along the curve of Apalachee Bay.
Like the rest of North Florida, including North Central Florida, the panhandle is more similar in culture and climate to the Deep South than the rest of the state, particularly than Central Florida and South Florida in the lower peninsula. The Florida panhandle is known for its conservative politics, religious adherence, and "piney woods".
The largest city in the panhandle is Tallahassee, the state capital, population 196,169. However, the largest city west of the Appalachicola river is Pensacola, which has a population of 54,312 and also has the largest Metropolitan area in the entire panhandle with a population of 511,502. This metro area includes the second- and third-largest communities in the region, Pensacola and Navarre. The total population of the panhandle, as of the 2010 census, was 1,407,925, just under 7.5% of Florida's total population as recorded in the same census. At roughly 70 persons per square mile, its population density is less than 20% of Florida's as a whole.

Coastal regions

Emerald Coast

Emerald Coast, a term coined in 1983, refers in general to the beaches and coastal resorts from Pensacola to Port St. Joe, 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. Coastal regions of the following counties are usually included when referring to the Emerald Coast:
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.

Forgotten Coast

The Forgotten Coast is a trademarked term coined in the early 1990s 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. Coastal regions of the following counties are usually included when referring to the Forgotten Coast:
The Apalachicola River is the largest river of the panhandle. It is formed by the junction of several rivers, including the Chattahoochee and the Flint, where the boundaries of Alabama, Georgia, and Florida meet. From there, it flows southward to the town of Apalachicola.
Major estuaries include, from west to east: Perdido Bay, fed by the Perdido River, which forms the west boundary of Florida; Escambia Bay and East Bay, fed by the Escambia River and Blackwater River, respectively; Choctawhatchee Bay, fed by the Choctawhatchee River; and St. Andrews Bay, fed by Econfina Creek. Pensacola Bay, a deepwater port, is formed by the joining of Escambia and East bays. The Gulf Intracoastal Waterway, completed in 1949, traverses the lower panhandle by means of bays, lagoons, sounds, and human-made canals. The barrier islands of Perdido Key and Santa Rosa Island extend from the Panhandle's western extremity through Fort Walton Beach to Destin.
Britton Hill is the highest natural point in the state
at above mean sea level.
The Florida Panhandle's coastline features over 15 coastal dune lakes, which are unique globally because they periodically connect to the Gulf of Mexico and receive water from surrounding wetlands and rainfall.

History

19th century

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.
In 1821, Pensacola was the only city in West Florida, with a population estimated to be about 3,000. In the 1850 census, the enumerated population of Pensacola was 2,164.

Alabama annexation proposals

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.
  • In 1819, the constitutional convention of Alabama asked Congress to include West Florida in their new state.
  • 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.
  • In 1826, the Pensacola Gazette published a number of letters advocating annexation to Alabama, though the editor remarked that some Pensacolians opposed the idea.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • In 1858, the Alabama Legislature unsuccessfully tried to open negotiations with Florida on the subject.
  • 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.
  • On November 2, 1869, a referendum was held in the West Florida counties, with a result of 1162 to 661 in favor of annexation. However, political objection developed in Alabama to the high price, and the Legislature took no action on the results of the referendum.
  • 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. 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.
The region's post-Civil War timber and turpentine industries were spurred by the development of new railroad lines. One addition was Henry Bradley Plant's 1883 railroad branch that extended to Chattahoochee.
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.

20th century

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.

21st 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 winds and a 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 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.
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. 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.
Hurricane Michael in 2018 caused long-lasting demographic impacts in Bay County. Studies show that almost 5.2 percent of the county’s population permanently relocated for better living and stressing local recovery efforts. This migration underscores the lack of coastal communities to climate-related problems.