While many people think that the American West is the only place to find ghost towns, it is not. There are many ghost towns located throughout Florida. These ghost towns might not have silver mines, tumbleweeds, or old desert cactus, but they have more than their fair share of abandoned outlaw hideouts, taverns, and other houses of ill-repute.
One of the most interesting of Florida’s ghost towns in the northern part of the state is Fort Mose (pronounced Moh-say). This community was started by slaves who escaped from the Georgia and South Carolina plantations during the 1600s and 1700s. They were given safe harbor by the Spanish Governor of Florida and were trained by soldiers from the Presidio of Saint Augustine to form a militia that protected the northern areas of Florida from English attacks. The town was populated by over 100 free African families at its height in 1738. Historians say that most of the residents fled with the Spanish to Cuba in 1763, when the British took over Florida for a 20 year period. Some may have remained and assimilated into the local Indian tribes. Today, there is nothing remaining of the town other than some archeological sites that have been turned into the Fort Mose State Park, which is located off of US Highway 1 just north of present-day Saint Augustine.
While not nearly as old as Fort Mose, another important military town in northern Florida that is now abandoned and turned into a ghost town is Yukon, Florida. Yukon was a railroad town started in the mid 1800s as the Blackpoint Settlement. The town grew and was home to many military families from the nearby Naval Air Station Jacksonville. The town remained a vital community until 1963 when the Navy declared it a flight safety hazard and closed the town completely. Today, a few businesses remain in the old downtown business district of the town but most of the streets and buildings are destroyed and overgrown. The Metro City of Jacksonville has turned the streets and buildings into the Tillie Fowler Regional Park and has begun to clear the old streets and turn them into biking trails. To visit Yukon today, follow US Highway 17 to the front gate of Naval Air Station Jacksonville and then turn west rather than east into the base. This will take you into the old downtown business district of Yukon. The entrance to Tillie Fowler Regional Park is just about a half mile from the entrance to the business district and is on the west side of US Highway 17.
An interesting Florida ghost town that was the home of modern day pirates back in the days of Prohibition is Stiltsville, Florida. This town was built about 1 mile south of Key Biscayne and all of the houses were built on stilts. During the 1930’s Stiltsville was a favored hangout of famed gangster, Al Capone. The town started originally in the 1910s and 1920s because it was outside of the international limit for the Coast Guard to be able to intercept the bootleggers and they could safely dock their boats at Stiltsville and unload their contraband rum cargoes coming from Cuba. In the 1980’s the town saw a resurgence in its smuggling roots as marijuana smugglers used the town for the same purpose that their earlier Prohibition counterparts had. As law enforcement cracked down on drug smugglers and the area became part of the Biscayne Bay National Park, Stiltsville was dealt its final blow. After having been able to survive hurricanes and tropical storms for decades, the town has now become an abandoned shadow of its former illicit glory. Today visitors to the Biscayne Bay National Park can take a boat out to Stiltsville to see its remaining structures, but the structures are gradually deteriorating and soon there will be nothing left but a memory of this modern day pirate haunt.
The smallest city in Florida today is a ghost town for all practical purposes. With less than six families living in the town, Islandia, Florida, is an unfulfilled dream for developers and an area saved for environmentalists. This ghost town was to have been a resort for the ultra-rich located just south of Miami and connected to the Florida Keys by a causeway. It incorporated in 1951 but the subsequent creation of the Biscayne Bay National Park in the 1970’s and 1980’s virtually guaranteed that this town would never grow to more than five little islands it currently occupies. Because the town has no infrastructure or services, it has become virtually abandoned. The only town official still serving is a mayor and he is the only official for the entire population of the town. There are few buildings still standing as most were destroyed in the devastation of 1992’s Hurricane Andrew. Many others were destroyed in 2005 as Hurricane Katrina passed over on its entrance to the Gulf of Mexico and finished Hurricane Andrew’s dirty work. Today visitors can access the town by boat and will be treated to one of the most ghostly experiences in the beauty of South Florida. Overall there is virtually nothing left of the town and it is just a matter of time until it becomes entirely abandoned.
As you can see, while it may differ from other states, Florida has more than its share of interesting ghost towns. Wherever you may live or visit in the state, the next time you are in the Sunshine state, visit the local historical society and ask about any ghost towns in the local area. You just might be surprised at what turns up in the long forgotten corners of Old Florida.
Sources
Personal Experiences
Jeremy Cox, “The Ghost Towns Of Florida’s Past,” Florida Times-Union (Sunday, July 17,2011)
“Jacksonville’s Ghost Town: Yukon,” Metro Jacksonville
“Islandia, Florida,” Florida Visiting
“Stiltsville,” Key Biscayne.com
