What Has Changed in Port St. Joe: A History

The Original St. Joseph: A Short-Lived Capital

In late 1838, territorial delegates gathered at St. Joseph, a port town on the Gulf of Mexico's Apalachee Bay, to draft Florida's first constitution. The convention ran from 3 December 1838 to 11 January 1839, and the resulting document became the foundation for statehood. The town's motto — Birthplace of the Florida Constitution — preserves that moment. But the settlement itself did not last. Yellow fever swept through in 1841, and a hurricane storm surge in 1844 destroyed what structures remained. Within three years of the constitution's signing, the town was mostly abandoned; within six, it was gone.

Port St. Joe: A New Town, Same Name

The modern town carries the saint's name of the settlement that died here — St. Joseph, with "Port" added. That distinction matters. The original St. Joseph was not rebuilt; a new town took its name. It arose on or near the same stretch of coast, keeping the saint's name but adding "Port" — a deliberate act of continuity after the original settlement's destruction. Everything here has been rebuilt at least once. The first town was erased by fever and storm, and the port that replaced it took the same name.

Port St. Joe's Demographics: Second Homes and Seasonal Residents

The census figures paint a town that holds more rooms than residents. Port St. Joe's population is 3,499 people, with a median age of 52.9 years. Of the 2,037 total housing units, 473 are vacant, and 270 are held for seasonal or recreational use — roughly 13 percent of all housing sits empty for much of the year. The median home value is $280,600, the median gross rent is $1,342, and median household income is $60,347. A third of residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher. The unemployment rate is 6 percent. These numbers suggest a community with a substantial second-home presence, an older year-round population, and a housing stock that serves more than its permanent residents.

Constitution Convention Museum State Park: A Living Memorial

Fourteen acres outside town hold the Constitution Convention Museum State Park, which anchors the town's identity as the birthplace of the Florida Constitution. The park features a reproduction of the convention hall and audio-animated recreations of the 1838 delegates — life-sized figures that deliver the debates and arguments that shaped Florida's first governing document. It is a deliberate, physical reconstruction of a moment that happened in a town that no longer exists.

Scallop Season and the Labor Day Festival in Port St. Joe

The town's most visible annual ritual is the Florida Scallop, Music & Arts Festival, held Labor Day weekend at Gulf County Veterans Memorial Park on Beacon Hill. Run by the Gulf County Chamber of Commerce, it closes out the scallop season the coast is named for. It is a seasonal counterpoint to the town's historical weight — a celebration of the natural bounty that drew settlers here in the first place, set against a backdrop of a town that has already survived one erasure.

Nearby Towns: Comparisons in Survival and Celebration

Port St. Joe sits among towns that each mark time in their own way. Apalachicola, 23 miles away, hosts the Florida Seafood Festival. St. George Island, 31 miles off, holds its annual chili cook-off. Further afield, Perry celebrates the Florida Forest Festival, Steinhatchee honors the fiddler crab, Cedar Key runs its seafood festival, and Dade City hosts the Kumquat Festival. None of them carry the weight of a founding document written in a town that vanished. Port St. Joe's festival is not just about scallops; it is about a town that keeps its name alive by gathering, year after year, on the same stretch of coast where an earlier settlement died.