Gulf Islands National Seashore
Stretching westward from Santa Rosa Island east of
Pensacola, Florida, to West Ship island south of Biloxi,
Mississippi, the barrier islands of the national seashore
provide some of the finest opportunities to explore the
unique lifestyles of the barrier islands of the Gulf of
Mexico.
This unusual park provides scenes of intense natural
beauty on eleven separate units which include long, slim
islands and parts of islands, bays, sounds, and a few
mainland sites. There are no park units in the thin
stretch of Alabama that reaches into the gulf on the west
and east sides of Mobile Bay.
Divided into two major districts (Florida and
Mississippi), the park covers 137,598 acres. Florida has
9,366 acres accessible by land and highways, with another
56,450 acres reached only by boat.
Florida Sections
The park headquarters in Florida is located at Naval
Live Oaks, two miles east of the town of Gulf Breeze, on
U.S. Highway 98. This is a mainland unit, on a long sand
spit that encloses Pensacola Bay. The facility here
offers information on all of the park units, plus natural
history exhibits, displays on Native American settlement,
and audiovisual programs. Other park sections include
Santa Rosa, Okaloosa, Fort Pickens, the Pensacola city
forts, and Perdido Key. In addition to the Naval Live
Oaks information office, a Visitor Information Center is
found at the north end of the Pensacola Bay Bridge, also
via U.S. 90.
The mainland and island units offer an extensive
variety of ecological discoveries, in addition to
excellent boating, sailing, hiking, cycling, fishing,
diving, and relaxing on some of the best beaches in the
Pensacola area. Most of the sites have local historical
importance, containing the remains of old military
fortifications such as Fort Pickens which, was built to
protect Pensacola Bay from foreign invasion when Florida
was a U.S. territory, and then was used for two years as
a prison housing captured Native Americans, including
Geronimo.
The following information on the park units is
organized in an east-to-west direction.
Okaloosa
This small day-use park is located south of the town
of Fort Walton Beach, near the eastern tip of Santa Rosa
Island. You get there by taking U.S. 98 east from
Pensacola (across the Bay Bridge and then east),
continuing on Highway 98 past the community of Mary
Esther to the unit. From Fort Walton beach, take State
Route 189 south to Highway 98 and turn east.
This is primarily a sunbathing beach with swimming and
picnicking. The unit has outdoor showers.
Santa Rosa Island
One of two units on this island, just off the coast
southeast of Pensacola, the Santa Rosa section is another
day-use area (no camping), located on State Route 399,
east of the toll bridge that joins the island to the town
of Gulf Breeze. Offering beach walking, picnicking,
swimming, and sunbathing, the park has a ranger station
and outdoor showers. This unit has been left in a natural
state, with boardwalks extending to Santa Rosa Sound and
the gulf shore, to protect the fragile dunes. The beaches
on both sides are in pristine condition.
Naval Live Oaks
Pensacola Bay, large enough to harbor a flotilla of
ships, became an important naval port. The city had long
been a settlement of the Spanish, French, and then
English (for a very short while), and was frequented by
pirates and buccaneers for many years, before provisional
territorial governor Andrew Jackson was sent to Florida
to make some order out of the lawless chaos. Jackson
lived in a large house at the north side of the town. The
city is full of historic sites from the Spanish period,
including the large Seville District, plus buildings from
the English years, such as Florida's oldest Protestant
church, Old Christ Church. The city also benefits from an
infusion of French Creole architecture during the short
French occupation.
One of the places where Native American habitation is
known to have existed in the area, the land around
Pensacola Bay was home to native people at least 5,000
years ago. They settled along the water's edge, creating
shell middens wherever they lived. They became farmers
and moved inland to better agricultural land. Artifacts
found in this unit include pottery shards and stone
points used on projectiles. There are archeological sites
in the unit, and these are protected from human
intervention.
On U.S. Highway 98, near the south end of the
Pensacola Bay Bridge, this 1,300-acre unit features 1,378
acres of southern magnolias, live (evergreen) oaks,
pines, sweet bays, and wax myrtles -- a typical lowland
northwest Florida plant community. The woodlands offer a
home to snakes, foxes, raccoons, skunks, the occasional
bobcat, some rabbits, and gray squirrels. You'll find
native plants such as red basil along the trails. The
park was named by the U.S. Navy, which was assigned to
take over the area in 1827 as a reserve of live oak
needed for shipbuilding. Most early warships including
Old Ironsides (War of 1812) were made of this heavy,
decay-resistant wood. It was the nation's first
government tree farm. Today, the live oaks are still
here, since ironclad warships made oak ship construction
obsolete from about 1870. The oaks grow along the north
side of the park (beside Pensacola Bay), and on the south
side (on Santa Rosa Sound), with the oak hammocks
extending inland from both sides to a depth of about 900
feet. The forests offer hiking and cycling on several
trails. Other park activities are sailing, boating, scuba
diving, and fishing.
There are marshes on the property, composed of tall
grasses, including cordgrass, providing a home for terns,
egrets, herons, and other water birds. Turtles and snakes
are also found in the marshy parts of the park. The third
ecosystem is the unique northern Florida sandhill
community, found in the center of the park, with Sand
Pine, turkey oak, saw palmetto, prickly pear cactus, and
yaupon holly.
Four nature trails lead through this unit, mostly
through the eastern end -- around a beaver pond and by
two old quarries -- as well as from the Visitor Center,
where a trail leads along a figure-8 loop, beside Santa
Rosa Sound. The Pensacola-St. Augustine Road Trail
runs through the middle of the park, lengthwise, offering
a variety of sand pine, longleaf pine, and live oak
woodlands, including southern magnolia, pignut, and scrub
oak.
The Beaver Pond Trail is found at the northeast
corner of the unit, leading one mile through an area of
longleaf pine and oak groves. Also in the northeast
section, the Old Quarry Trail intersects with
the Old Borrow Pit Trail, connecting with the
Beaver Pond Trail.
The only camping facility in this unit is a youth
campground, located on Pensacola Bay. Picnic shelters,
the visitor center, and an observation deck are all
located along Santa Rosa Sound, on the south side of the
park.
Camping Reservations
The national parks campground reservation system is
now in effect. For information and reservation numbers,
go to this page.
