When I first moved to Palm Valley almost 20 years ago it felt isolated. I remember driving down Palm Valley Road and seeing a car in front of me and thinking “someone is lost” and, sure enough, they would slow down and then pull over to the side of the road and put on their hazards. That road often felt dark and foreboding. Nowadays, it is full of traffic at almost any hour of the day. That is what progress looks like.
I remember old-timers telling me that it used to be a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. They seemed to miss it. Now, stuck in traffic trying to get past the new circle, I understand why. Palm Valley has always existed, and European settlers have been living there since at least the 1700s. Over the years, it has changed drastically, either for the better or for the worse.
Historically, Palm Valley stretched from roughly what is now A1A out to Durbin Swamp on Route 1. Route 1 used to be called the King’s Road. That road was built on an old Native American trail by the British shortly before the Revolution. Initially, the area was known as Diego or Diego Plains after Diego de Espinosa, who built a small fort and cattle ranch there in 1735. The fort was short-lived. The name lasted longer.
They changed it to Palm Valley in 1906. Someone asked me the other day, “Where is the valley?” I am not sure. I guess that if there was one, it is now the Intracoastal Waterway. But there certainly were and are plenty of palms. People who lived here made a living in a variety of ways. One was to harvest palm fronds for Palm Sunday. Every year, the families banded together to cut and ship 400,000 palm fronds to churches up north. The fronds were sewn into wet burlap by the women. It was a major source of income for the Groves, Miers, Oesterreichers and Micklers.
There was also plenty of hunting and fishing. And lots of fish camps. Papa George Oesterreicher ran a fish camp under the bridge for decades. You could buy beer or Coca-Cola or bait there. You could also get a good fish dinner. Up above, Merlin Mickler tended the old draw bridge. Other fish camps in the area included The Old Clam Shell and the Anchorage.
In the early half of the 20th century, the forest provided its own commerce. They harvested cypress at Cracker Landing on the west side of the canal. Others cut railroad ties for the Florida East Coast Railway. A man named William West operated a turpentine still on the east side of the canal. In the 1920s, the population of the area soared with the arrival of African-Americans to work on the turpentine farm. Most of them lived on Stantonia Road.
The forest also provided a place to make moonshine. “Palm Valley shine” was the best that this area had to offer. Some say it was the water. Some say it was the isolation of the swamp that gave shiners time to make their product special. Whatever the reason, it was prized up and down the coast. Some say they still make moonshine in Palm Valley today!
The people of the area were proud of their frontier heritage. In 1948, they banded together to move a building from Camp Blanding to Canal Boulevard to serve as a community center. In the 1980s, Ernest Mickler wrote a book about the area called “White Trash Cooking.” It was a huge success on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. In the book he talked a lot about their pride and their manners. Pride and manners were what separated his people from the lesser white trash.
If you would like to learn more about this area and its proud heritage, consider attending the Palm Valley History Festival April 22 at the Palm Valley Community Center and learn more about the culture and cooking that made this place great.
To see the schedule for the Palm Valley History Festival, click here.
Scott A. Grant is a local historian and author. He will be speaking on The History of Palm Valley, Ponte Vedra and Nocatee at 4 p.m. at the Palm Valley History Festival.
