Ponte Vedra Beach in St. Johns County, Florida — The American South (South Atlantic)
Palm Valley
Photographed by Tim Fillmon, August 25, 2011
1. Palm Valley Marker
Inscription.
Palm Valley. . This rich hammock once covered with oaks, magnolias and especially palms was originally known as the Plains of Diego, after Don Diego de Espinosa, who built a small fort nearby in the 1730's. Around 1900, the community of Diego was renamed Palm Valley after the Sabal Palm. The Sabal or Cabbage Palm, Florida's state tree, was for many years an important contributor to the local economy, adding hundreds of dollars annually to the meager income of area settlers. Each winter, orders came from the nation's churches for fresh cut palm buds for the celebration of Palm Sunday. Palm buds were cut by the thousands, packed in bunches of twenty-five or fifty, and taken to Durbin Station on the Florida East Coast Railway where they were picked up by the train. Later, after the Intracoastal Waterway opened in 1912, stacks of palms were taken to a dock on the canal where they were picked up by the Navajo or Alamo, two packet boats that hauled freight between Miami and Jacksonville over the new waterway. The completion of the Intracoastal Waterway through Palm Valley, in addition to allowing boat passage, effectively drained much of the area that was formally marshland.
This rich hammock once covered with oaks, magnolias and especially palms was originally known as the Plains of Diego, after Don Diego de Espinosa, who built a small fort nearby in the 1730's. Around 1900, the community of Diego was renamed Palm Valley after the Sabal Palm. The Sabal or Cabbage Palm, Florida's state tree, was for many years an important contributor to the local economy, adding hundreds of dollars annually to the meager income of area settlers. Each winter, orders came from the nation's churches for fresh cut palm buds for the celebration of Palm Sunday. Palm buds were cut by the thousands, packed in bunches of twenty-five or fifty, and taken to Durbin Station on the Florida East Coast Railway where they were picked up by the train. Later, after the Intracoastal Waterway opened in 1912, stacks of palms were taken to a dock on the canal where they were picked up by the Navajo or Alamo, two packet boats that hauled freight between Miami and Jacksonville over the new waterway. The completion of the Intracoastal Waterway through Palm Valley, in addition to allowing boat passage, effectively drained much of the
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area that was formally marshland.
Erected 2005 by St. Johns County Board of County Commissioners and the Florida Department of State. (Marker Number F-554.)
Location. 30° 10.627′ N, 81° 23.889′ W. Marker is in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, in St. Johns County. It is on Canal Boulevard 0.1 miles east of Roscoe Boulevard South, on the left when traveling east. Marker is located in front of the Palm Valley Community Center. Touch for map. Marker is at or near this postal address: 148 Canal Boulevard, Ponte Vedra Beach FL 32082, United States of America. Touch for directions.
Regionally, this marker is in First Coast and in Greater Jacksonville. It is also in the American South and on the Eastern Seaboard. Globally, it is in the North Atlantic Region, North America, a Gulf of Mexico state, the Western Hemisphere, the Western World, and the Anglosphere. Historically, it finds itself in what was once New Spain, the territory of the
Photographed by Tim Fillmon, circa August 25, 2011
2. Palm Valley Marker in front of community center
Mississippian Culture, one of the Confederate States of America, and the Antebellum South.
Credits. This page was last revised on October 29, 2020. It was originally submitted on October 7, 2020, by Tim Fillmon of Webster, Florida. This page has been viewed 1,177 times since then and 55 times this year. Photos:1, 2. submitted on October 7, 2020, by Tim Fillmon of Webster, Florida.
