11/09/2022
A Brief History of Crestview, Florida
by Jim Shipp
After the Civil War, the Northwest Florida panhandle remained a vast untamed wilderness. Its indigenous inhabitants, the Pensacola and Apalachee tribes, had been largely assimilated by the Choctaw, who were then dominant in the region, but homesteaders began making their way to the area on foot, in carts and wagons, and by boat to establish small farms and other enterprises. The early settlers engaged in timbering, turpentine production, hunting, fishing, and trading, often gathering at informal outposts to exchange goods and news. These trading posts eventually became fledgling towns.
Before the railroad arrived, Northwest Floridians moved their goods via the rivers and bayous. The advent of rail service was key to the region’s development.
The Pensacola and Atlantic (P & A) Railroad opened a line between Pensacola and Chattahoochee in January of 1883. Soon, two passenger trains, the Atlantic Express and the Gulf Express, as well as an accommodation train that stopped everywhere along the way, were in daily operation. The Louisville and Nashville (L & N) Railroad merged P & A into its Pensacola and Atlantic Division in 1885.
A village of approximately 50 inhabitants sprang up near one of railroad’s makeshift boxcar depots (literally a depot in a boxcar). This station was named Crest View, because it straddled the crest of a high ridge between the Shoal River to the east and the Yellow River to the west.
The first school in Crestview, a two-story frame building on State Road 85 where the cemetery now sits, opened in 1879. It was destroyed by a fire in 1916, and until a new building could be built, the students were taught in a small church located where the Harris Building and the Church of Christ stand today.
In 1890, P & A built a wood frame depot building with a waiting area and a freight room. The L & N depot, constructed in 1891, was officially designated as Crest View Station, the future site of the city of Crestview.
In 1894, sawmill operator W. B. Wright opened the 26-mile Yellow River Railroad between Crestview and Florala, Alabama, via Auburn, Campton, and Laurel Hill, after which it became easier for freight and passengers to reach the city. The L & N Railroad supplied the Yellow River line with freight cars and purchased the operation in 1906 as its Yellow River Branch.
In 1915, Laurel Hill resident and statesman William Mapoles introduced a bill before the Florida House of Representatives calling for the creation of Okaloosa County from portions of western Walton and eastern Santa Rosa counties. The county name was taken from the steamboat Okaloosa, a Choctaw word meaning black water. This vessel ferried passengers along the Blackwater River from Milton to Pensacola.
Okaloosa was established as Florida’s 52nd county that same year. At the time of its formation, the county did not have a single paved road or incorporated town. A temporary county seat was set up in Milligan. Crestview was incorporated in 1916 and a special election in 1917 designated it as the permanent county seat.
The Crestview Colored School, the only school for Afro-American children in Okaloosa County, was opened in 1915 using funds donated by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. It became the Carver School in 1926, named in honor of scientist and inventor George Washington Carver. When a new school was built in 1954, the name of Reverend Edwin Hill, who fought to fund Afro-American schools nationwide, was added and it became the Carver-Hill School, which closed in 1965. A museum was established in 1969, housed in the school’s former lunchroom. In 1975, a new museum was built on land loaned by the city of Crestview. The museum was formalized in 1979.
In 1917, a new Crestview school was created in a small building across from the courthouse, but it was again destroyed by a fire in 1920. The students attended classes in the old Baptist Tabernacle for the next six years.
The P & A Railroad later extended its service to Jacksonville, making it possible for Okaloosa County’s commodities and passengers to reach Florida’s east coast. It also brought new industry and settlers to the area, and the city of Crestview prospered.
The original Okaloosa County Courthouse was built on East Main Street during 1918-1919. The building faced north and was a two-story edifice of white stucco, concrete, and glass.
The 1920 census reported the population of the city of Crestview to be 938 persons.
Yet another new Crestview school was built in 1926, located at US Highway 90 and State Road 85, and yet another fire struck in 1953, but the building continued to be used for several years.
The Bush House, a two-story 3,661-square-foot home with a green metal roof located at 198 Wilson Street South, was completed for L & N Railroad track supervisor Lorenza Bush in 1926 and is historically significant.
Also in 1926, a family of physicians, brothers Olin, Justus, and Brett Enzor, together with their nephew Allen Enzor, built the first hospital in Okaloosa County, west of Crestview on what is now US Highway 90. This two-story brick structure was named the Enzor Brothers Hospital and was the only full-fledged medical facility between Marianna and Pensacola at that time. It operated into the 1950s. The brothers additionally owned and operated the Enzor Motel and Cottages, also on US Highway 90, which was demolished around 1990. A short extension of Old Bethel Road as it crosses US Highway 90 is named Enzor Road.
The Eglin Theatre was built on Main Street in 1932. In 1949, actor Gregory Peck and other stars were in town for the nationwide premier of the movie Twelve O'Clock High at both the Eglin and the Fox theatres. This movie was filmed in and around Crestview. The theatre operated until the mid-1950s.
The Crestview Theatre was also built on Main Street in 1932 and also operated into the mid-1950s.
A local businessman and aviation enthusiast, James E. Plew, sought to bring the military to a county suffering from the Great Depression. In 1934, Plew donated 1,460 acres of land to the US government for the establishment of the Valparaiso Bombing and Gunnery Range, which was built in 1935. The US Army Air Corps changed the name of this range to Eglin Field in 1937, honoring Lieutenant Colonel Frederick (“Fritz”) Eglin, who had been killed in a plane crash that same year. After the Army Air Corps became the US Air Force, the name was again changed to Eglin Air Force Base, which presently occupies an area of 640 square miles. Today, contemporary aircraft and modern weapons are tested there.
The Smith-Johnson Company opened a garment factory in Crestview in 1937 that boasted 250 machines and employed some 300 persons.
Okaloosa County’s farming and fishing communities remained quite primitive for several decades, enjoying a quiet and private existence. It wasn’t until the 1940s that its steadily increasing military presence and tourist activities gave rise to modern conveniences, such as paved roads, telephones, and electric service.
In the spring of 1941, the L & N Railroad laid a long sidetrack in Crestview to handle the many oil tank cars required to supply the Asphalt Products Company with the materials needed to pave ten new airfields. A fleet of trucks operated round the clock to offload an estimated 180 carloads of petroleum products for this task.
A modern bus terminal, Reese’s Greyhound Station, opened on the corner of State Road 85 and Pearl Street on Friday, May 9, 1941. It served the Greyhound Line’s Jacksonville-Los-Angeles route, with connections north to Memphis, Atlanta, and New York. The building featured a waiting room, a lounge, a smoking room, a restaurant, and a loading concourse.
In 1942, Crestview experienced further growth when the Doolittle Raiders (who later attacked mainland Japan) and other military units began training at a newly built cantonment facility on the north end of the Eglin Air Force Base reservation, approximately six miles south of the city. This facility became known as Duke Field in 1943, named after another plane crash victim, 1st Lieutenant Robert L. Duke.
The Fox Theatre opened on Main Street in 1947. It is the only one of the three Main Street theatre buildings that still exists today and currently houses the Peaden Brothers Distillery.
On July 31, 1949, the L & N Railroad, in conjunction with the Seaboard Air Line Railroad, inaugurated the Gulf Wind streamliner through Crestview between New Orleans and Jacksonville , which replaced the New Orleans-Florida Limited. It operated until April 30, 1971, when Amtrak took over most US rail passenger service and discontinued the route.
Crestview’s existing school underwent substantial remodeling in 1955. An annex was added in 1963 and the structure was demolished in 2017.
Crestview housed the Apache Records studio, which opened in 1960 and mostly produced music by local Afro-American artists.
In 1969, Crestview High School was built on State Road 85 near Airport Road and is still in use today. Home to more than 2,000 students, it is the largest high school in Okaloosa County.
Without any major shippers to make it profitable, the Yellow River railway line from Crestview to Florala was briefly used for freight car storage during the early 1980s and was then abandoned, with 25.3 miles of the track being lifted in 1985 and with some portions of the track being paved over to create local streets, although the original right of way still exists.
Today, highways and airports help the railroad link Okaloosa County to the rest of the world. The CSX Railroad now runs through Crestview. It follows the route of the Old Spanish Trail, which extends for thousands of miles from Jacksonville west across the state of Florida to Van Horn, Texas, and on to California. It is one of the country’s great truck lines, saturated in Indian, French, Spanish, and English history. In Crestview, the Old Spanish Trail is represented by US Highway 90.
The present-day Crestview train station was built on Industrial Drive just off Main Street in 1993, when the Sunset Limited was extended east to Miami. Service to the station was suspended after Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast in 2005, but it remains a point of historical interest.
The current Okaloosa County Courthouse, also located on Main Street, was constructed during 2017-2018. It is a three-story red brick, glass, and concrete structure, with two-story wings on its east and west sides. The courtrooms are located on the second story. The building houses the Circuit Court of the 1st Judicial Circuit and the County Court.
Crestview’s Old Spanish Trail Festival (OSTF) has been held off and on for decades. At various times, it included a parade, a five-day treasure hunt (with daily radio clues), and a rodeo. The Crestview festival was used as a model for other OSTF events across the nation.
Spanish Trail Park, located on Stillwell Boulevard, one block off State Road 85, is a 26-acre site with softball and soccer fields, two pavilions, grills, restrooms, an amphitheater, a senior center, and a farmer’s market. One of the largest such venues in the state of Florida, it is also a setting for carnivals, circuses, fairs, and family movie nights.
Crestview’s population stood at 27,284 persons in 2020, making it the largest city in Okaloosa County, the 97th largest city in Florida, and the 1,415th largest city in the United States.
The city’s original nickname was “The Icebox of Florida”, since it had the coldest winters in the state due to its elevation of 235 feet above sea level. These days, it is known as “Hub City”, because it lies at the junction of Interstate 10, US Highway 90, State Road 85, and the Florida Gulf & Atlantic Road. It receives 65 inches of rainfall annually, the second most of any city in the state of Florida after Fort Walton Beach with 69 inches.
In addition to Interstate 10, the major traffic arteries in Crestview are State Road 85 (Ferdon Boulevard) and US Highway 90 (James Lee Boulevard).
The Shoal River, a tributary of the Yellow River, runs near Crestview. It provides miles of slow-moving shallow water that enjoys extensive recreational use. The city’s closest shoreline is on the Gulf of Mexico about 27 miles south, near the city of Fort Walton Beach.
Crestview’s sister city is Noirmoutier-en-l'Île, France.
