Flagler County, Florida: History
The region was home to Seminole and Timucua tribes before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century.
Large plantations grew cash crops including corn and sugar cane in the early 1800s. Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park was the biggest sugar plantation on Florida's east coast. Farmers also cultivated the Irish potato and the potato is on the county seal. Beginning in the 1800s, agriculture (cabbage and potato farming), silviculture and ranching (cattle farming) were the economic drivers of the county.
The county was created in 1917 using parts of Volusia and St. Johns Counties. It was named in honor of Henry Flagler, the wealthy Industrialist who financed and constructed the Florida East Coast Railway.
The county was involved in the Florida land boom of the 1920s which generated tourism. Bunnell was incorporated as a city in 1924, Flagler Beach the following year and the original courthouse in Bunnell was built in 1926.
Marine Studios was one of Florida's first marine mammal parks, billed as "the world's first oceanarium". The first attraction was a bottlenose dolphin. Approximately 30,000 people showed up for the grand opening on June 23, 1938 and Florida State Road A1A was gridlocked for miles in both directions. Underwater scenes were filmed at the facility in hundreds of movies. It was one of the first tourist attractions built in Florida, intended for St. Augustine but ended up in Flagler County. It was renamed Marineland of Florida in 1961.
The Pennsylvania-based Lehigh Cement Company purchased 9,000 acres (3,600 ha) of Flagler County land in 1948 and began building a manufacturing plant for Portland cement in 1949. A rail spur was constructed from the plant, seven miles to the Florida East Coast Railway tracks north of Bunnell.
A navigable canal was built from the Intracoastal Waterway to the plant allowing fuel oil delivery from barges.
The area’s soil has coquina shell containing lime, a major component of cement, and the plant was expected to produce 1.5 million barrels of cement per year for 100 years. The plant opened in 1952 and employed 300 for a dozen years. The cement bags were loaded in box cars and bulk product into tank cars. The plant's peak production occurred in 1958 when 150 rail cars were loaded every day. Despite high productivity and earnings, the plants could not recapture enough funds through depreciation to pay for replacement machinery. The Bunnell plant was closed down in 1965. The property was purchased by ITT for $8 million on December 23, 1968.
Palm Coast was established in 1969-1970 as a master-planned community by International Telephone & Telegraph Corporation, transforming over 40,000 acres of pine forest and wetlands into a residential "golf town". At the time, the population of the county was under 5,000. The population nearly doubled every ten years through 2010 when the population reached 95,696.
Formally incorporated in 1999, it grew from a planned retirement/resort area into a thriving city, now known for its extensive canal systems and rapid population growth. …