Big Bend Scenic Byway
City of St. Marks, FL

A wonderful location for lunch, this quaint Waterfront Florida Community is situated at the juncture of two Outstanding Florida Waters—the St. Marks and Wakulla Rivers—accented by vast stretches of marsh grass.

One of the oldest settlements in North America, the first European to have seen this point was Panfilo de Narvaez in 1528. In 1679 the Spanish started building the first fort in St. Marks, using logs painted with lime to look like stone, but pirates weren’t fooled by the camouflage. They looted and burned the fort a few years later. Forts in St. Marks were later occupied by Spanish, British, Spanish again, then (for five weeks) by a force seeking to establish “the Nation of Muskogee,” and Spanish yet again, before being taken over for the United States by Andrew Jackson in 1818. The fort passed back into Spanish control one more time before U.S. troops occupied it in 1821. In 1861 it was reoccupied by Confederate troops and named Fort Ward, and became a permanent possession of the United States at the end of the Civil War.

Now open to the public as Ft. San Marcos de Apalachee Historical State Park, it features a wonderful museum of exhibits and artifacts, and a well-marked walking trail through the ruins. Located opposite the Fort is Florida’s first designated state trail which follows the abandoned railbed of the historic Tallahassee-St. Marks Railroad. The trail runs 16 miles south from Florida’s capital city, Tallahassee, through the Apalachicola National Forest, ending in St. Marks. Through the early 1900s this historic railroad corridor was used to transport cotton from the plantation belt to the docks at St. Marks for shipment to textile mills in England and New England. Today, as a paved trail, it provides an excellent recreational workout for bicyclists, walkers, and skaters. An adjacent unpaved trail also provides opportunities for horseback riding. St. Marks celebrates its heritage in October with a Stone Crab Festival and reenactment at the Fort.