Pensacola Beach is an
unincorporated community located on
Santa Rosa Island, a
barrier island
Barrier islands are coastal landforms and a type of dune system that are exceptionally flat or lumpy areas of sand that form by wave and tidal action parallel to the mainland coast. They usually occur in chains, consisting of anything from a ...
, in
Escambia County,
Florida,
United States. It is situated south of
Pensacola (and
Gulf Breeze
Gulf Breeze is a city in Santa Rosa County, Florida. It is a suburb of Pensacola, and is in the Pensacola Metropolitan Area. The population estimate was 6,900 in 2020. Gulf Breeze is located just north of Pensacola Beach, and south of Pensaco ...
connected via bridges spanning to the
Fairpoint Peninsula
The Fairpoint Peninsula (also referred to as the Gulf Breeze Peninsula or the Navarre Peninsula) is located in northwest Florida between Santa Rosa Sound (the location of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway's route through the region) and Pensacola B ...
and then to the island) in the
Gulf of Mexico. As of the
2000 census, the community had a total population of 2,738. It has been described as "famous" for its ultra-
white sand beach
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shells ...
es.
Pensacola Beach occupies land bound by a 1947 deed from the
United States Department of Interior that it be administered in the public interest by the county or leased, but never "disposed"; its businesses and residents are thus long-term leaseholders and not property owners.
Pensacola Beach is part of the
Pensacola–
Ferry Pass–
Brent Metropolitan Statistical Area
In the United States, a metropolitan statistical area (MSA) is a geographical region with a relatively high population density at its core and close economic ties throughout the area. Such regions are neither legally Incorporated town, incorporate ...
, which includes all of
Escambia and
Santa Rosa
Santa Rosa is the Italian, Portuguese and Spanish name for Saint Rose.
Santa Rosa may also refer to:
Places Argentina
* Santa Rosa, Mendoza, a city
* Santa Rosa, Tinogasta, Catamarca
* Santa Rosa, Valle Viejo, Catamarca
*Santa Rosa, La Pampa
* S ...
counties.
History
: ''Also see:
History of Pensacola, Florida
The history of Pensacola, Florida, begins long before the Spanish claimed founding of the modern city in 1698. The area around present-day Pensacola, Florida, Pensacola was inhabited by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Native American peoples t ...
.''
Francisco Maldonado, a lieutenant
["The Spanish Presence in Northwest Florida – 1513 to 1705" (history), University of West Florida, 2006, webpage]
UWF-hist
. under
Conquistador
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...
Hernando de Soto, visited the area during the early
Spanish exploration of North America. He anchored in
Pensacola Bay
Pensacola Bay is a bay located in the northwestern part of Florida, United States, known as the Florida Panhandle.
The bay, an inlet of the Gulf of Mexico, is located in Escambia County and Santa Rosa County, adjacent to the city of Pensacola ...
for the winter of 1539–1540.
In 1559, Don
Tristan de Luna
Tristan (Latin/ Brythonic: ''Drustanus''; cy, Trystan), also known as Tristram or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed ...
y Arellano led the first settlement of the region.
His 11 ships, with 1500 settlers,
anchored in the bay and established its colony on the site of today's
Naval Air Station Pensacola
Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United State ...
. A
hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
decimated the
colony
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state'' ...
a few weeks later, killing hundreds and sinking five ships.
Suffering long-term famine and fighting, this first settlement was finally abandoned in 1561.
A
presidio was constructed on Santa Rosa Island in 1722 near the location of the more recent
Fort Pickens. Hurricanes in 1741 and 1752
forced its relocation to the mainland.
Pensacola Beach for many years remained largely undeveloped. The Casino Resort was the first tourist destination constructed on the island (at the present day location of Casino Beach) where a variety of special events including
beauty pageants
A beauty pageant is a competition that has traditionally focused on judging and ranking the physical attributes of the contestants. Pageants have now evolved to include inner beauty, with criteria covering judging of personality, intelligence, ...
,
fishing tournament
A fishing tournament, or derby, is an organised competition among anglers. Fishing tournaments typically take place as a series of competitive events around or on a clearly defined body of water with specific rules applying to each event. They can ...
s, and
boxing matches were held from the 1930s through 1950s. With a bar, tennis courts, bath houses, and a restaurant, it was a popular resort until it eventually closed in the 1960s.
The entire island was initially owned by the
federal government. In order to promote infrastructure and growth on the island, the federal government leased the lands now encompassing Pensacola Beach to the Santa Rosa Island Authority (SRIA), which in turn has leased the property to homeowners. As a result, all structures on the island have 99-year renewable leases with the SRIA rather than ownership of the land itself.
Geography
Pensacola Beach is located at , on the barrier island of Santa Rosa. It is bordered to the south by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by
Santa Rosa Sound Santa Rosa Sound is a sound connecting Pensacola Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay in Florida. The northern shore consists of the Fairpoint Peninsula and portions of the mainland in Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County. It is bounded to the south by ...
and Pensacola Bay, and to the east and west by the
Gulf Islands National Seashore
Gulf Islands National Seashore offers recreation opportunities and preserves natural and historic resources along the Gulf of Mexico barrier islands of Florida and Mississippi. The protected regions include mainland areas and parts of seven isla ...
.
Climate
While generally cooler than most of
peninsular Florida, Pensacola Beach maintains a more stable
temperature year round than inland areas of Pensacola and Escambia County. As such, winter lows are several degrees warmer than Pensacola proper and summer highs are generally cooler as a result of the surrounding waters.
As with many islands, Pensacola Beach enjoys
sea breezes
A sea breeze or onshore breeze is any wind that blows from a large body of water toward or onto a landmass; it develops due to differences in air pressure created by the differing heat capacities of water and dry land. As such, sea breezes ar ...
which begin around noon and end around sunset in the summer, and there are often afternoon
thunderstorms. The average temperature ranges from in January to in July.
Hurricanes
As a community located on a low-lying barrier island, Pensacola Beach is vulnerable to
hurricane
A tropical cyclone is a rapidly rotating storm system characterized by a low-pressure center, a closed low-level atmospheric circulation, strong winds, and a spiral arrangement of thunderstorms that produce heavy rain and squalls. Depend ...
s. Landfalling storms have been known to drive
storm surge over the island, damaging or destroying man-made structures and causing
beach erosion
Coastal erosion is the loss or displacement of land, or the long-term removal of sediment and rocks along the coastline due to the action of waves, currents, tides, wind-driven water, waterborne ice, or other impacts of storms. The landward ...
. In 1995, two hurricanes made landfall on the island.
Hurricane Erin made landfall in August, and
Hurricane Opal
Hurricane Opal was a large and powerful Category 4 hurricane that caused severe and extensive damage along the northern Gulf Coast of the United States in October 1995. The fifteenth named storm, ninth hurricane and strongest tropical cyclo ...
blasted the island just two months later, leveling some
dunes
A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, fl ...
and destroying a number of homes.
On September 16, 2004,
Hurricane Ivan devastated the Pensacola Beach area, destroying more than 650 homes and damaging many others. Ivan was the last hurricane to make Florida landfall in 2004, one of the most destructive hurricane seasons in decades.
On July 10, 2005,
Hurricane Dennis
Hurricane Dennis was an early-forming major hurricane in the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico during the record-breaking 2005 Atlantic hurricane season. Dennis was the fourth named storm, second hurricane, and first major hurricane of the season. F ...
made landfall between Pensacola Beach and eastern
Navarre Beach
Navarre is a census-designated place and unincorporated community in Santa Rosa County in the northwest Florida Panhandle. It is a major bedroom community for mostly U.S. military personnel, federal civil servants, local population, retirees ...
. However, as with Erin several years earlier, the damage on Pensacola Beach was not nearly as extensive as predicted.
In 2020, Pensacola Beach took the brunt of the storm from
Hurricane Sally
Hurricane Sally was a destructive and slow-moving Atlantic hurricane, which was the first hurricane to make landfall in the U.S. state of Alabama since Ivan in 2004, coincidentally on the same date in the same place. The eighteenth named sto ...
, seeing widespread wind damage, storm surge flooding, and over 20 inches (510 mm) of rainfall. A section of the
Pensacola Bay Bridge
The Pensacola Bay Bridge, also known locally as the Three-Mile Bridge, runs between downtown Pensacola, Florida, and Gulf Breeze, Florida. It carries two to four lanes of U.S. Highway 98 across Pensacola Bay.
History
The bridge, which is dedi ...
(known to locals as the Three Mile Bridge) was destroyed during Hurricane Sally.
The island has been subject to mandatory
evacuation orders during some of these hurricanes.
Oil spill
The ''
Deepwater Horizon
''Deepwater Horizon'' was an ultra-deepwater, dynamically positioned, semi-submersible offshore drilling rig owned by Transocean and operated by BP. On 20 April 2010, while drilling at the Macondo Prospect, a blowout caused an explosion ...
'', a
BP-operated oil-drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico off the
Louisiana coast, exploded April 20, 2010, eventually releasing almost 5 million barrels of
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
into the Gulf before being capped on August 4, 2010. Oil from the explosion did not reach Pensacola beaches until June 4, 2010. Crews posted along Escambia County's coastline quickly cleaned much of the oil that was evident along the beaches.
Tourism in the Pensacola Beach area was adversely affected during the summer of 2010. ''
BBC News'' reported that swimmers at Pensacola Beach "encountered an oil sheen and children picked up tar blobs as big as tennis balls."
Public transportation
Escambia County Area Transit (ECAT) provides bus transportation seven days per week.
Government and infrastructure
Escambia County Fire Rescue operates Fire Station #13 in Pensacola Beach.
The
Escambia County Sheriff's Office has Precinct 1 covering Pensacola Beach, operated out of the Pensacola Beach Sheriff's Substation.
Attractions
Casino Beach
The hub of beach activity, Casino Beach, on Pensacola Beach, is named after the original casino that stood in this location and is a popular beach access. The location is dotted with restaurants and family entertainment areas. It is situated next to the Pensacola Beach Gulf Pier, which at 1,471 feet is described as the longest pier on the Gulf of Mexico. The beach is equipped with lifeguard stands and station, volleyball courts, snack bar and large parking lot. The Gulfside Pavilion hosts a "Bands on the Beach" concert series during the summer tourist season.
Gulf Pier
The Gulf Pier has been called an iconic part of Pensacola Beach by residents. It is maintained by Escambia County Public Works and the Santa Rosa Island Authority. In addition to fishing, the pier offers sightseeing marine wildlife such as
dolphins and
stingrays. It has been closed and renovated a number of times due to storm and hurricane damage.
Blue Angels
Pensacola beach is known for
flyovers by the
Blue Angels
The Blue Angels is a flight demonstration squadron of the United States Navy. demonstration team from the nearby
Pensacola Naval Air Station
Naval Air Station Pensacola or NAS Pensacola (formerly NAS/KNAS until changed circa 1970 to allow Nassau International Airport, now Lynden Pindling International Airport, to have IATA code NAS), "The Cradle of Naval Aviation", is a United Sta ...
base. An annual
air show
An air show (or airshow, air fair, air tattoo) is a public event where aircraft are exhibited.
They often include aerobatics demonstrations, without they are called "static air shows" with aircraft parked on the ground.
The largest air show ...
is held each summer.
Quietwater Beach Boardwalk
The Boardwalk is on the
Santa Rosa Sound Santa Rosa Sound is a sound connecting Pensacola Bay and Choctawhatchee Bay in Florida. The northern shore consists of the Fairpoint Peninsula and portions of the mainland in Santa Rosa County and Okaloosa County. It is bounded to the south by ...
side of the island, directly across from Casino Beach. Retail shops, restaurants, nightclubs, street musicians and sidewalk artists line it. The Boardwalk has a large sea shell stage where concerts are held several times a year.
Fort Pickens
Located at the western end of Santa Rosa Island,
Fort Pickens was completed in 1834 and used until
World War II, when modern weapons made traditional coastal defenses obsolete. It is open to the public as part of the Gulf Islands National Seashore, with a fee required for entry; campsites are also available for a fee.
Architecture
Commercial Buildings
Pensacola Beach is home to some of the tallest buildings between
Tallahassee and
Mobile, Alabama. The list below ranks the buildings in height.
# Portofino Towers ().
# Verandas Tower ().
# Beach Club ().
#Hilton Pensacola Beach Resort ().
# Santa Rosa Towers ().
#Emerald Isle Condominium ().
#Santa Rosa Towers ().
#Tristan Towers ().
Landmarks
Pensacola Beach Welcome Sign
Another historical landmark is the vintage Pensacola Beach Sign just outside Pensacola Beach in
Gulf Breeze
Gulf Breeze is a city in Santa Rosa County, Florida. It is a suburb of Pensacola, and is in the Pensacola Metropolitan Area. The population estimate was 6,900 in 2020. Gulf Breeze is located just north of Pensacola Beach, and south of Pensaco ...
. It was a 60s-era
neon sign that directs drivers towards Pensacola Beach's "scenic" views of the coast of the
Gulf of Mexico, as well as towards its white sand beaches, motels, and restaurants. The sign was renovated in 2019 to look exactly like the old sign but feature
LED lights
An LED lamp or LED light bulb is an electric light that produces light using light-emitting diodes (LEDs). LED lamps are significantly more energy-efficient than equivalent incandescent lamps
and can be significantly more efficient than mo ...
instead of
neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
.
Beach ball water tower
The
beach ball
''Beach Ball'' is a 1965 American beach party movie starring Edd Byrnes and partly financed by Roger Corman.Ed. J. Philip di Franco, ''The Movie World of Roger Corman'', Chelsea House Publishers, 1979, p. 145
It features appearances by The Supre ...
painted
water tower is an iconic symbol of Pensacola Beach. Today the water tower is no longer in use, but has been preserved by the city as a historical landmark.
Novelty houses
Pensacola Beach is home to several
novelty houses, which are homes built with unusual shapes for purposes such as
publicity or to copy other famous buildings in
parody.
One of the novelty houses in Pensacola is the hous
"Dome of a Home" built in 2002 using a
monolithic dome in the form of a large concrete dome, designed to structurally withstand storm surge and hurricane-force winds of . It withstood hurricanes
Ivan
Ivan () is a Slavic male given name, connected with the variant of the Greek name (English: John) from Hebrew meaning 'God is gracious'. It is associated worldwide with Slavic countries. The earliest person known to bear the name was Bulgari ...
and
Dennis. It is also known as the "
Flintstone Home" due to the fact it resembles a rock home.
Another novelty house is the house with a
UFO-shaped
Futuro
A Futuro house, or Futuro Pod, is a round, prefabricated house designed by Finnish architect Matti Suuronen, of which fewer than 100 were built during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The shape, reminiscent of a flying saucer, and the structure ...
attached as a second story. This Futuro house is sometimes called the "Spaceship House." It was designed in the 1960s by Finnish architect
Matti Suuronen
Matti Suuronen (14 June 1933 – 16 April 2013) was a Finnish architect and designer who is best known for designing the Futuro and Venturo homes in the Casa Finlandia series. The marvelous design of the Futuro went into production in both ...
. About a hundred of them were constructed.
Education
There is one school on Pensacola Beach. The Pensacola Beach Elementary School, within the
Escambia County School District (ECSD), is for children from kindergarten through fifth grade. This school has an enrollment ranging from 120 to 140 students. All elementary-school age children on Pensacola Beach are eligible to attend the school. The first year the school was open, for the school year 1977–1978, classes were held in an empty A-frame house. The Pensacola Beach Volunteer Fire Department building was also used in aiding the teachers and administrators. In November 1977, four portable buildings were moved to the present site. They school has received the 5 Star School award since 1998. In 2001 the Pensacola Beach Elementary lost its direct district operational control and became a
charter school
A charter school is a school that receives government funding but operates independently of the established state school system in which it is located. It is independent in the sense that it operates according to the basic principle of autono ...
.
[Home](_blank)
. Pensacola Beach Elementary School. Retrieved on January 31, 2017. "After completing Fifth Grade at the Beach School, most children attend Middle and High School in nearby Gulf Breeze which is part of the Santa Rosa County School District." In September 2004
Hurricane Ivan destroyed an office and four classrooms. Jeff Castleberry, the principal, argued that ECSD would have closed the school if it had direct operational control. The costs to fix the damage at Pensacola Beach Elementary was $1.5 million. The campus is adjacent to the
Gulf of Mexico and is built on stilt. The school has been described as one of several Escambia County charter schools that "exemplify charter schools at their finest".
Pensacola Beach is zoned for (assigned to) a different ECSD elementary school, Suter Elementary School, as well as Workman Middle School, and
Pensacola High School. However, most middle- and high-school students in Pensacola Beach attend Gulf Breeze Middle School and
Gulf Breeze High School
Gulf Breeze High School is a public secondary school located at 675 Gulf Breeze Parkway in Gulf Breeze, Florida. It is one of eleven high schools of the Santa Rosa County School District and the only high school in the city of Gulf Breeze.
For ...
, operated by
Santa Rosa County School District.
In addition, some attend Pensacola-area
magnet schools.
Religion
See also
*
Operation Sandshaker
References
External links
*
Tourism websitePensacola Beach Preservation & Historical SocietyPensacola Beach Webcam
{{authority control
Pensacola metropolitan area
Unincorporated communities in Escambia County, Florida
Beaches of Florida
Unincorporated communities in Florida
Populated coastal places in Florida on the Gulf of Mexico
Beaches of Escambia County, Florida
Santa Rosa Island (Florida)