Chronicling the Heritage of Florida’s Sunrise City
Fort Pierce, Florida · Founded 1901
The Fort Pierce Annals maintains a growing collection of original, well-researched articles on the history of Fort Pierce, Florida. From the writers and governors who called this city home, to the hurricanes and wars that tested its resilience, to the industries that built its economy — our archive covers the full sweep of Fort Pierce history. Each article is thoroughly sourced and written to preserve these stories for future generations.
Browse the collection below, organized across our four main sections: People, Events, Places, and Industries. New articles are added regularly as our research continues.
Zora Neale Hurston, author of Their Eyes Were Watching God and a towering figure of the Harlem Renaissance, spent the last decade of her life in Fort Pierce. She arrived in 1957, took work as a substitute teacher and maid, and continued writing even as the literary world forgot her. Her unmarked grave in Fort Pierce was rediscovered by Alice Walker in 1973, sparking one of the greatest literary rediscoveries in American history.
Daniel Thomas McCarty was born into a prominent Fort Pierce citrus family in 1912 and went on to become the 31st Governor of Florida. A combat veteran of World War II who earned the Silver Star, McCarty championed education reform and environmental conservation before his sudden death in office in September 1953, just nine months into his term. Fort Pierce’s McCarty Road and a local school bear his name to this day.
The San Felipe–Okeechobee Hurricane of September 1928 remains the deadliest natural disaster in Fort Pierce history and one of the worst in American history. The Category 4 storm made landfall near West Palm Beach, but Fort Pierce bore the full brunt of its northern eyewall. Winds exceeding 140 miles per hour flattened buildings, uprooted citrus groves, and shattered the young city’s infrastructure. The storm killed an estimated 2,500 people across South Florida.
In June 1943, the U.S. Navy established the Amphibious Scout and Raider School on the beaches of North Hutchinson Island near Fort Pierce. Here, thousands of volunteers endured punishing training in the surf, sand, and mangroves to become the Navy’s first Underwater Demolition Teams. These frogmen cleared beach obstacles at Normandy, Saipan, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa. The UDT program at Fort Pierce is recognized as the direct origin of today’s Navy SEALs, and the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum stands on the original training beach.
The commercial heart of Fort Pierce has occupied the same few blocks along the Indian River since the early 1900s. Today, historic downtown Fort Pierce is a living museum of early-twentieth-century Florida architecture — from the 1908 P.P. Cobb building to the magnificently restored 1923 Sunrise Theatre. Murals, galleries, and waterfront parks now fill the spaces between the old brick storefronts, drawing visitors who come to experience a Florida downtown that has kept its character intact.
The Indian River Lagoon is not a river at all but a 156-mile-long estuary stretching along Florida’s Atlantic coast, and Fort Pierce sits at its ecological and geographic heart. Recognized as the most biologically diverse estuary in North America, the lagoon is home to more than 4,300 species of plants and animals. For thousands of years — from the Ais people to Spanish explorers to modern-day fishermen — the lagoon has sustained the communities along its shores. Today it faces serious environmental challenges that threaten its future.
Fishing is woven into the very identity of Fort Pierce. Before the railroads arrived, before the citrus groves were planted, people fished these waters. Commercial fishing took hold in the late nineteenth century, and the completion of the Fort Pierce Inlet in 1921 opened direct access to the Atlantic, transforming the city into one of Florida’s most productive fishing ports. Mullet, mackerel, shrimp, and clams sustained families and fueled the local economy for generations.
The Indian River citrus district, centered on Fort Pierce and St. Lucie County, produced some of the most prized oranges and grapefruit in the world for more than a century. Beginning in the 1890s, citrus cultivation transformed Fort Pierce from a remote frontier settlement into a prosperous agricultural hub. Packing houses, cooperatives, and the Florida East Coast Railway turned the golden fruit into an economic engine that shaped the city’s growth, attracted waves of workers, and defined its identity well into the modern era.
The Fort Pierce Annals is continuously expanding its archive. If you have a suggestion for a topic we should cover, or if you have historical materials to share, please get in touch. You can also explore the broader regional history at our sister publication, Saint Lucie History.