Chronicling the Heritage of Florida’s Sunrise City
Fort Pierce, Florida · Founded 1901
Fort Pierce, Florida, has weathered powerful hurricanes, served as a crucible for the nation's most elite military forces, and witnessed the transformation of a frontier settlement into the cultural heart of the Treasure Coast. From its origins as a military outpost during the Second Seminole War to the booms and busts of the twentieth century, the city's history is marked by moments of destruction, resilience, and reinvention. These are the events that shaped Fort Pierce and the communities of St. Lucie County.
Lieutenant Colonel Benjamin Kendrick Pierce, brother of President Franklin Pierce, establishes a military outpost during the Second Seminole War along the Indian River. The fort gives the future city its name. Learn more about the fort's origins on our Places & Landmarks page.
Fort Pierce is officially incorporated as a city, becoming the seat of St. Lucie County. The arrival of Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway in the 1890s had already begun transforming the settlement into a commercial hub for the region's growing citrus and pineapple industries.
St. Lucie County is carved out of Brevard County by the Florida Legislature, with Fort Pierce designated as the county seat. The new county encompasses a vast stretch of the Atlantic coast and interior farmland. Explore the broader county history at saintluciehistory.com.
On the night of August 29, 1910, the Cross & Rutherford fish house burns on the Fort Pierce waterfront, with four more fish houses and a gasoline warehouse a few feet away. The volunteer fire department, more than a hundred citizens, and a fire engine the town had laughed at hold the blaze to one building. Three months later the council buys a gasoline engine.
On the night of October 17, 1910, a hurricane the Weather Bureau had been warning of for five days reaches Fort Pierce, with the barometer at 29.17 and the wind at seventy miles an hour. It wrecks the wharfs and boathouses on the river front, washes out the railroad at Jupiter and Rio, and strands as many as sixty coaches of tourists in the yards. A week later the Board of Trade appoints a committee on storm signals, and in November it petitions the Weather Bureau for a flagstaff to fly its warnings.
A catastrophic Category 4 hurricane strikes South Florida on September 16, 1928, devastating Fort Pierce, St. Lucie County, and the communities around Lake Okeechobee. At least 2,500 people perish, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in American history.
The most intense Atlantic hurricane to make landfall in the United States strikes the Florida Keys on September 2, 1935. While the worst devastation occurs in the Keys, Fort Pierce and the Treasure Coast experience significant storm effects, a reminder of the region's vulnerability just seven years after the 1928 catastrophe.
The United States Navy establishes an Amphibious Training Base at Fort Pierce on the beaches of Hutchinson Island. Here, the Naval Combat Demolition Units and Underwater Demolition Teams are forged, the direct predecessors of today's Navy SEALs. Fort Pierce earns its place in military history as the birthplace of the Navy SEALs.
Renowned author and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston moves to Fort Pierce, where she will spend the final decade of her life. She continues writing and working as a journalist, librarian, and substitute teacher before her death in 1960.
Following years of civil rights activism, St. Lucie County begins the process of desegregating its public schools. Fort Pierce's Black community, centered in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, had long maintained its own churches, schools, and businesses under the constraints of Jim Crow segregation.
On September 16, 1928, a massive Category 4 hurricane tore through Fort Pierce and the communities around Lake Okeechobee, killing thousands and reshaping the region's landscape, infrastructure, and collective memory forever.
During World War II, the beaches of Fort Pierce became the proving ground for the Navy's most daring combat swimmers. The Underwater Demolition Teams trained here went on to clear the beaches at Normandy and Okinawa, and became the forebears of the Navy SEALs.
Fort Pierce organized a volunteer fire company in 1906 and bought an engine the town made fun of. On a Monday night in August 1910 that engine stood between a burning fish house and a warehouse full of gasoline, and the town stopped laughing.
In October 1909 the town watched a hurricane wreck Key West from under a cloudy sky, and a good many in town felt the Weather Bureau had missed its guess again. A year later the wind came up the river at seventy miles an hour, wrecked the wharfs, and sent the Board of Trade to the same Bureau for storm flags.
The events above represent some of the most consequential moments in Fort Pierce's past, but the city's story extends far beyond hurricanes and wartime. Explore the people who built this community, the places that define its character, and the industries that sustained it through decades of change. For the broader history of the region, visit our sister publication, The Saint Lucie History Project.