St. Joseph devastated by disease, fires and storms
GULF COUNTY, Fla. – Almost every year, hurricanes take their toll on Florida’s infrastructure, often causing millions of dollars’ worth in damage.
Of course, this isn’t a recent phenomenon.
In fact, the largest city in the state was utterly annihilated by one such storm nearly two centuries ago.
That city — St. Joseph — was picked over Tallahassee in 1838 as the site of Florida’s first Constitutional Convention so that Florida (which was still a territory) could officially become a state.
According to Gulf County officials, the city was a “bustling seaport,” making it a commercial hub with a population of around 11,000 people. Thanks to that, it was the largest city in Florida for its time.
Historian Dale Cox says that the city lost much of its population after rebranding as a coastal resort. But that was just the start.
A huge outbreak of yellow fever spread through the area in 1841, Cox explains. This reportedly dropped the population by around 75% as residents either succumbed to the illness or fled outright.
“The total death of the St. Joseph outbreak is unknown,” Cox writes. “Legend holds that there are mass graves in the historic Old St. Joseph Cemetery, which is all that remains of the original city.”
However, the outbreak passed shortly after it arrived, leading residents to push for recovery. Things seemed to be getting better, but they were actually headed for further disaster.
According to Florida State University, a strong hurricane blasted the panhandle just as the outbreak was dying down. As a result, the town was virtually decimated.
“And then, sometime within the fall of that year, there were wildfires that swept through the city...” said Joanna Lindsey, park ranger and historian at the Constitutional Convention Museum State Park. “It was virtually a ghost town at that point.”
Lindsey speculated that the fires could have just been a natural disaster, or potentially a method to try to “cleanse” the city of the yellow fever outbreak.
Afterward, she said, there were maybe a few hundred people left in the city. With so much of the area devastated, there wasn’t much point in staying, and so surviving residents opted to move elsewhere.
What little was left of St. Joseph didn’t stick around for long, either. As Lindsey tells it, another huge storm struck the area just three years later, clearing out the remaining buildings.
“They were pretty much washed away,” she told News 6. “There was a significant tidal surge that swept through the city... From all accounts, it was a significant storm. A lot of people in that time period referred to it as a tidal wave.”
With St. Joseph effectively extinct, the area was left unsettled until the tail-end of the 19th century.
Once people started trickling back into the region, they started building a new city: Port St. Joe.
The population isn’t quite as large as St. Joseph’s heyday — the latest figures pin the city at just over 3,300 residents — but Port St. Joe still carries on St. Joseph’s legacy.
The local Constitutional Convention Museum gives visitors a glimpse into St. Joseph’s history. Meanwhile, the St. Joseph Cemetery acts as the last remaining piece of the old city.
Want to read up on more strange stories and places across the Sunshine State? Visit News 6′s Florida Fables page by clicking here.