8. Black's Island

St. Joseph Bay along County Road 30A

Aerial view of Black's Island

Black’s Island, two miles east of the mainland, is visible from 30A. This semi-tropical island with hundreds of palm trees and several freshwater springs was surveyed by Frenchman Jean Berenger in 1718 and named Island of the Turtle for the giant sea turtles that nest there.

Nautical chart showing location of Black's Island

Local legend tells of sea captains, pirates, buried treasure, civil war intrigue, gambling and prostitution, ghosts and ghost ships. A sea captain named Black for whom the island was named arrived here in the 1830s seeking a refuge from pirates. He allegedly established a trade route from England down the East coast of Florida then to the keys and Cuba. On still moonlit nights it is said that you can hear the creaking wood of schooners anchored in the channel and see the shadows of tall masts and sails.

During the Civil War, Union forces burned the keepers’ quarters and the wooden portions of the lighthouse on Cape San Blas. The lighthouse keeper and his family retreated to Black’s Island for the remainder of the war. The island was also used as a camp by Union soldiers during the war and may have a confederate supply station.

In 1895, Black’s Island was chosen as the relocation site for the Cape San Blas Lighthouse, which kept falling into the encroaching sea. John Maddox glad to escape the bugs of Gautier Hammock moved there with his family. In 1896 after the foundation and one house were completed, the plan was abandoned when it was realized that the light could not be seen by ships in the Gulf. It was rumored that the remaining house became a house of prostitution and gambling in the early 1900s, and that a beautiful girl was accidentally killed and her body buried on the island. Her ghost is said to wander down the island on dark, windy nights.

For many years the island was a youth camp, and in 2006 lots are being sold for residential development.

Plat map of Black's Island

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