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Kurt

Admin
Staff member
Oct 15, 2004
2,233
4,925
SoWal
mooncreek.com
Upload to the photo gallery or email photos to info at SoWal.com or contact me to scan. We will put them on the web, but in the spirit of history you will have to use dial up and AOL to access - just kidding about that part. :lol:
 

Mango

SoWal Insider
Apr 7, 2006
9,709
1,360
New York/ Santa Rosa Beach
In a town called Mamaroneck here in New York, once a year, the shop keepers whose families were around or inherited old photos from the previous shopkeepers display them in the windows . Its a lot of funn to see. My husbands grandfather owned a hoity toity restaurant on the Sound there, and there are lots of old pictures of that as well as him in other pictures.
The horse and buggy pics are great.
They let us take photos of them so we can show them to his mother who is now in her late 80's.

I would imagine if there were any vintage photos of SoWal they would be of Grayton beach? I heard that 30A pretty much stopped there in the old days.
 

Oldtimer

Beach Lover
Nov 16, 2004
221
0
Mississippi Bound
Heck, when I was a kid, there wasn't even a road from Grayton to Seagrove (Seaside had not even been invented). We used to walk on the beach from Grayton to Seagrove, then to Point Washington by the hard road. There was an old country type store and we'd usually get lucky and someone we didn't know would give us a ride back to home at Grayton. We must have been really dumb, 'cause we actually thought we were having fun??? :dunno:

Who would have thought you'd need gourmet restaurants and coffee shops at the "beach"? We literally "had no where to go and all day to get there".

A really good day was when we hiked all the dunes between Gulf Trace and Grayton. We carved our initials in the trees at Magnolia Cave; had battles with our boy cousins using Magnolia burrs as hand grenades; slid down the dunes (no harm done then as there were only a few of us that even knew about Grayton Beach).

At night we'd build large bon fires behind the dunes (also against the law now). Someone who was lucky enough to have a modified beach buggy (no SUVs) would gather all the wood from all over the large dunes during the day then we'd all sit by the fire and do nothing. I suppose a few folks were fortunate enough to have a boyfriend, but mostly we were just all friends.

Does anybody remember the "lonesome pine" back on the dunes? I'd really like a picture of that. Don't know when it disappeared, but it was a neat sight in the middle of the dunes.

Lots of memories. I loved the beach then and I still love it today. It's just different and not all of the change has been good.

Just my two cents. :roll: :roll:
 

DD

SoWal Expert
Aug 29, 2005
23,885
457
70
grapevine, tx. /On the road to SoWal
Oldtimer said:
Heck, when I was a kid, there wasn't even a road from Grayton to Seagrove (Seaside had not even been invented). We used to walk on the beach from Grayton to Seagrove, then to Point Washington by the hard road. There was an old country type store and we'd usually get lucky and someone we didn't know would give us a ride back to home at Grayton. We must have been really dumb, 'cause we actually thought we were having fun??? :dunno:

Who would have thought you'd need gourmet restaurants and coffee shops at the "beach"? We literally "had no where to go and all day to get there".

A really good day was when we hiked all the dunes between Gulf Trace and Grayton. We carved our initials in the trees at Magnolia Cave; had battles with our boy cousins using Magnolia burrs as hand grenades; slid down the dunes (no harm done then as there were only a few of us that even knew about Grayton Beach).

At night we'd build large bon fires behind the dunes (also against the law now). Someone who was lucky enough to have a modified beach buggy (no SUVs) would gather all the wood from all over the large dunes during the day then we'd all sit by the fire and do nothing. I suppose a few folks were fortunate enough to have a boyfriend, but mostly we were just all friends.

Does anybody remember the "lonesome pine" back on the dunes? I'd really like a picture of that. Don't know when it disappeared, but it was a neat sight in the middle of the dunes.

Lots of memories. I loved the beach then and I still love it today. It's just different and not all of the change has been good.

Just my two cents. :roll: :roll:

Oldtimer: LOVE your two cents!:love: What wonderful memories and what a great place to grow up. A simpler time for sure. Thanks for sharing!! :clap_1:
 
destindreamin said:
Oldtimer: LOVE your two cents!:love: What wonderful memories and what a great place to grow up. A simpler time for sure. Thanks for sharing!! :clap_1:
I agree. That's really interesting, Oldtimer. Thanks!

I have some old memories of SoWal. I was born and raised in Atlanta, and PCB was a popular beach destination. My family always went every summer. (Actually, my mother was/is beautiful and liked to show off her figure in those days, so we'd spend spring break in St. Pete, two weeks in the summer at PCB, two more weeks in the summer at Daytona Beach, and the week between Christmas and New Year's at The Diplomat in Hollywood, FL). I digress.

My father was a successful business man who always had visions for ways to make big profits in the future. Every time we went to PCB, he'd insist that we drive into south Walton County. He planned to buy property there. We thought he was crazy. I mean, back then the area was so deserted. Unfortunately, he never bought the property because when he was 54 and I was a freshman at Tulane, he died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack.
 

bsmart

brain
Aug 19, 2005
1,390
6
41
Atlanta, GA.
Oldtimer said:
Heck, when I was a kid, there wasn't even a road from Grayton to Seagrove (Seaside had not even been invented). We used to walk on the beach from Grayton to Seagrove, then to Point Washington by the hard road. There was an old country type store and we'd usually get lucky and someone we didn't know would give us a ride back to home at Grayton. We must have been really dumb, 'cause we actually thought we were having fun??? :dunno:

Who would have thought you'd need gourmet restaurants and coffee shops at the "beach"? We literally "had no where to go and all day to get there".

A really good day was when we hiked all the dunes between Gulf Trace and Grayton. We carved our initials in the trees at Magnolia Cave; had battles with our boy cousins using Magnolia burrs as hand grenades; slid down the dunes (no harm done then as there were only a few of us that even knew about Grayton Beach).

At night we'd build large bon fires behind the dunes (also against the law now). Someone who was lucky enough to have a modified beach buggy (no SUVs) would gather all the wood from all over the large dunes during the day then we'd all sit by the fire and do nothing. I suppose a few folks were fortunate enough to have a boyfriend, but mostly we were just all friends.

Does anybody remember the "lonesome pine" back on the dunes? I'd really like a picture of that. Don't know when it disappeared, but it was a neat sight in the middle of the dunes.

Lots of memories. I loved the beach then and I still love it today. It's just different and not all of the change has been good.

Just my two cents. :roll: :roll:

I love to hear stories like this. My undergrad degree is in History (also urban planning). With history I am concerned with environmental history and southern history, particularly spoken accounts. I am an advocate of converting spoken history to written history for all to admire. In fact my favorite book is Of Days Gone By: Reflections of South Walton County, Florida.
 

DD

SoWal Expert
Aug 29, 2005
23,885
457
70
grapevine, tx. /On the road to SoWal
bsmart said:
I love to hear stories like this. My undergrad degree is in History (also urban planning). With history I am concerned with environmental history and southern history, particularly spoken accounts. I am an advocate of converting spoken history to written history for all to admire. In fact my favorite book is Of Days Gone By: Reflections of South Walton County, Florida.

I would love to read this book. Is it readily available? Haven't done a search...just fired this off...:roll:
 

wetwilly

Beach Fanatic
Jul 11, 2005
536
0
Atlanta, Ga.
bsmart said:
I love to hear stories like this. My undergrad degree is in History (also urban planning). With history I am concerned with environmental history and southern history, particularly spoken accounts. I am an advocate of converting spoken history to written history for all to admire. In fact my favorite book is Of Days Gone By: Reflections of South Walton County, Florida.

Donna may have some old pix of Grayton Beach and SoWal. She also has some really good stories (see past threads) from the past since she has been going to Grayton since she was little. Also, mentioned in other threads is a book that we bought a few years ago named "The Way We Were"..."Recollections of South Walton Pioneers" it is published by South Walton Three Arts Alliance, Inc. I do not remember where we bought ours but Kurt or someone else probably knows where to get one. The book has some great stories and it is full of old photos of SoWal and all of Walton County.

Check it out since it is a great book and I have read many stories several times and they just seem to get better everytime I read them.

:cool:
 

bsmart

brain
Aug 19, 2005
1,390
6
41
Atlanta, GA.
wetwilly said:
Donna may have some old pix of Grayton Beach and SoWal. She also has some really good stories (see past threads) from the past since she has been going to Grayton since she was little. Also, mentioned in other threads is a book that we bought a few years ago named "The Way We Were"..."Recollections of South Walton Pioneers" it is published by South Walton Three Arts Alliance, Inc. I do not remember where we bought ours but Kurt or someone else probably knows where to get one. The book has some great stories and it is full of old photos of SoWal and all of Walton County.

Check it out since it is a great book and I have read many stories several times and they just seem to get better everytime I read them.

:cool:


Yes this is a great book too. I bought this and Of Days Gone By at Sundog books at Seaside. Another great book which recounts some of the land use history, from The St. Joe Company perspective, is Green Empire, also available at Sundogs.
 
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