The Murmuring Surf Cottages were located on Scenic Highway 98, across from Embassy Suites in Miramar Beach. In 2007, I posted a couple of photos on a message board and asked for information about Murmuring Surf. I was delighted when Clay Terry, the daughter of the owners, wrote to me. She graciously gave me permission […]
Masonic Lodge No. 170 was built at the corner of Eighth and Nelson Avenue in 1920. The lodge met upstairs and rented the downstairs to a furniture store. By the end of the 1920s, the first floor was used by a wholesale grocery company for storage. In the early 1930s, the Masons could not afford […]
The original Hotel DeFuniak stood on Baldwin Avenue between Tenth and Eleventh Streets. The location is now vacant and is often referred to as the Piggly Wiggly parking lot. In the 1890s, the hotel was known as the Martin House. At some point in the mid-1900s, it was purchased by Mrs. Ruth L. Bruner and […]
Camillus F. Hinesley owned The Florida House from 1914 until 1928. It was located on the northeast corner of Nelson Avenue and Eighth Street, across from what is now the Hotel DeFuniak. The hotel was renamed The Florida Hotel and continued in operation until 1962 when it was consumed by fire. The Orlando SentinelMonday, January […]
The Hotel Chautauqua was built in time for the first Florida Chautauqua Assembly in 1885. It was located on the site that was until recently occupied by Gulf Power on Circle Drive. The photograph above was taken by G. Willard Shear in 1887. Note the fence on the lakeside, which kept cattle in the lakeyard […]
In 1949 Paul and Margaret Benedict bought a beachfront lot for $1,750 from Seagrove founder Cube McGee Sr, on which McGee built a concrete block cottage for them in 1951. The Benedicts bought 300 feet more gulf front property from McGee in 1952 for $15,000, on which four duplexes were built. The Benedicts named the […]
The following item appeared in The Breeze newspaper on July 13, 1911: A Friend of ours, Gone. Mr. J. C. Scott, one of the pioneer northern settlers of DeFuniak, passed away at his summer home in Chautauqua, N. Y., on the 30th of last month from a stroke of paralysis which attacked him on the […]