Fort Walton Beach, Florida - Artistic Welcome Signs on Waymarking.com

This wooden sign depicts a lovely ocean scene at sundown. At the top of the sign are seven pink camellias. It's not clear where the town's slogan originated; however, there is a Greater Fort Walton Beach Camellia Society that appears to be quite active in the community. Undoubtedly the name originates with that society and their works around town.

"The City of Fort Walton Beach, home to approximately 22,000 people, was first created and chartered as a municipality in 1937. Though Fort Walton Beach is a relatively young city, its history actually goes back thousands of years.

There is evidence from radioactive dating of artifacts back to 10,000 B.C., and archeological evidence of five distinct Indian periods between 600 - 1650 A.D. There were pirates, the most notorious being Billy Bowlegs between 1500 - 1800, and there was a Civil War encampment. In the early days Fort Walton was known both as Brooks Landing when John Thomas Brooks and his family settled here in 1868 and Camp Walton for the Civil War encampment by the Walton Guards. It was renamed Fort Walton when a Civil War cannon was discovered in 1932 and excavated from an Indian mound in the present downtown area on Santa Rosa Sound."

-- Source

Relevant Website: [Web Link]

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Date Logged Log   07/10/2011 powertool visited it