Short History of Florida Borders and a few road names
BeachRunner & DoGood: For you -- the very, very, very short version of Florida, Walton County and South Walton Border and Road History. Native people were in our South Walton area and a number of our roads cover or parallel their trails - names unknown. Pope Alexander VI split the world in half with the 1493 Inter Caetera and gave our part of the world to Spain. The Spanish arrived and the La Florida map was published in Ortilius' Atlas of the World in 1584. Our Florida borders have been changing on maps since this map and earlier maps were prepared or published by various countries. The La Florida map borders went from current borders to Texas up to Newfoundland. You can tell almost everyone "Welcome Home to Florida!" The Santa Rosa Bay is now known as Choctawhatchee Bay, renamed by the British. (People in Santa Rosa County still refer to the part of Santa Rosa Island renamed as Okaloosa Island as Santa Rosa Island) During the American Revolution and between the Treaties of Paris (1763-1783), when the Floridas were the British Colonies of West Florida and East Florida, the western border of the 14th Colony, West Florida, went to the Mississippi River. Then, Florida became a United States Territory with current borders and Territorial Governor Andrew Jackson in 1821 named two counties, Escambia and St. Johns with the Suwannee River as the border. Walton County was the eighth county formed, December 29, 1824. Bordering counties were formed later. Washington 1825 (which took South Walton and didn't return it until 1913 - hint of where Pt. Washington got its name), Santa Rosa in 1842 (Even though Santa Rosa Sound and Island border Santa Rosa County, Santa Rosa County doesn't now border Choctawhatchee Bay or historical "Santa Rosa Bay"), Bay County in 1913 (Panama City was incorporated in 1909 and was then part of Washington County) and Okaloosa County 1915 (half out of Walton and Santa Rosa Counties). Road names have changed as much as county names. Henry Marie Brackenridge's Military Road lead to Walton County's first county seat, Alaqua. A 1931 Walton County map shows no 30A. It does show State Road 1 where State Highway 90 is, State Road 10, where State Highway 20 is today, and State Road 115 where Highway 98 is. One of my plats for Eastern Lake Estates (copy by C.B. Hurst Sr. Surveyor. Santa Rosa County) shows the road where 30A is now as North Avenue (there was no 30A at this time and no bridges over all the coastal dune lakes (which ought to be raised and changed immho). Another Eastern Lake plat I have shows the road over the lake now and calls it State Road No. S-30A. So now, you can put this with other comments here on SoWal. Road names and borders are always changing. There's much more to this story, but that is all the time we have. Now, have another cup of coffee! (footnote to BeachRunner: former Post Master could give you an earful about the shenanigans and political qwackery that has happened with our postal zip codes, but that is another story that will probably change again, too.)
