Home | Jensen Beach Florida History

Welcome to the History of Jensen Beach Florida.  A very interesting town with a equally interesting history.

Jensen Beach is a charming, quaint, historical town full of hospitality and beaming with community pride. The town has a relaxed, easy-going atmosphere, and is located along the scenic Indian River in the heart of Florida's Treasure Coast. The beautiful landscape of Jensen Beach is unique to Florida rising a whopping 83 feet above sea level, the highest point of land on Florida's east coast.

Jensen Beach, Florida is just one hour north of Palm Beach International Airport, but its light-years away from the hustle-and-bustle of daily life. Located directly on the Atlantic Ocean, Jensen Beach has beach rentals, condo rentals, and villa rentals, and every vacation rental comes fully loaded with the area's major attractions: sunny skies, gentle breezes and miles and miles of sandy white beaches. If you want an active vacation, Jensen Beach has you covered with all your favorite watersports: sailing, snorkeling, scuba diving, waterskiing, and jet skiing. Tennis courts and five area golf courses provide a challenge on land. Kids will love the Florida Power & Light Power Plant and Turtle Walk, while adults will enjoy the history on display at the Elliott Museum. Spend a day exploring the shops of Jensen Beach and stop for a refreshing snack or elegant meal at one of dozens of excellent restaurants. The relaxed atmosphere of Jensen Beach is welcoming and warm, and visitors are encouraged to kick-back, relax and re-energize while enjoying the tranquil beauty of the area. Jensen Beach vacation rentals are the secret treasure that can be you on Florida's famed Treasure Coast.

History

About 10,000 years ago, a new print mixed with that of the thousands of wild animals freely roaming this lush land. The Ais Indians moved into this area and evolved a lifestyle centered around the rivers and ocean. They dug canoes out of tree trunks and caught migrating whales in the ocean by jumping on their backs and pounding wooden plugs into the blowholes. As far as we know at this time, they did not farm but gathered wild berries and plants, and used everything from the land and waters for food, tools and decorations. By 1775, they had ceased to exist mainly due to European diseases.

In 1565, soon after St. Augustine was settled, Spaniards sailed down in Indian River looking for shipwreck survivors and trying to convert the Indians. Somewhere between today's Jupiter and Ft. Pierce, they built a fort on December 13th, naming it for the patron saint of that day, St. Lucie.

James Hutchinson obtained a land grant from the Spanish governor in 1807 for land on the west bank of the Indian River to raise hogs. Four years later, he complained that the Seminole Indians were molesting his crops and stealing his livestock, so his grant was changed to the island between the Indian River Inlet on the north and the St. Lucie Inlet on the south, where he thought it would be safer. But in two years time, his plantation had been raided by pirates, the buildings had been burned, his slaves stolen and his crops damaged. Then he drowned in a storm at sea while returning from St. Augustine. That's who Hutchinson Island is named after.

Seminoles gradually filled this land vacated by the Ais. They were Creeks who had been pushed from their homelands in Alabama and Georgia by wars and settlers. Our leaders in Washington, D.C. had a national policy of removing Indians to western territories and this was continued in Florida, resulting in three Seminole Indian wars.

Under the Armed Occupation Act of 1842, settlers homesteaded land from Sewall's Point north to the Sebastian River and grew pineapples for the first time. Many different cash crops were tried, but slow and uncertain transportation to the northern markets by coastal schooners proved impractical. Another problem was that fresh water buildup from the St. Lucie River was causing brackish Indian River to lose its salinity, as the only salt water entered through the Indian River Inlet north of Ft. Pierce. Saltwater fish and animals disappeared and the oyster beds were affected. Freshwater grasses flourished and settlers feared malaria. So in 1844, these homesteaders dug an inlet at Gilbert's Bar, a narrow neck of land nearly opposite the mouth of the St. Lucie River.

Blockade runners and federal gunboats were in the waters off our coast during the Civil War. Navigation for the gunboats was made more difficult when several of the remaining homesteaders, believers in the Confederacy from St. Lucie Village, removed the lights form Jupiter and Cape Florida lighthouse. Jupiter's light was reinstalled after the war.
In 1879, Captain Thomas E. Richards homesteaded acreage on the west bank of the Indian River which he named Eden. After sailing to the Keys for pineapple slips, he planted most of them on Hutchinson Island, with a few around his home on the mainland. Those on the island died or were eaten by bears, but those near his home prospered.

John Laurence Jensen immigrated from Denmark and lived in West Virginia before coming to Florida. In November 1881, he qualified for a Homestead Certificate, giving him the right to settle on this land which today bears his name. Of course, he and other newcomers cleared the land for pineapple planting, reportedly with the help of Indians and Bahamian laborers.

By 1891, Captain Richards had the largest pineapple plantation on the Indian River. The fruit was packed in barrels or boxes at the plantations packing house, loaded onto riverboats, and transported to Titusville, the southern terminus of the railroad. In 1894, Flagler's East Coast Railroad reached this area and growers loaded fruit directly onto the freight cars.

In 1895, Jensen was called the "Pineapple Capital of the World," shipping out 1,000,000 boxed of pineapples mostly in June and July. A pineapple canning factory was opened where fancy pineapples were put up in two-quart mason jars. Captain Richards produced and bottled a "pineapple digestive" to help relieve indigestion. Eventually, along the sandy ridge from Sewall's Point northward almost to present day Vero Beach, pineapples covered the cultivated earth.

Commercial fishing was also a big industry in the mid - 1890s. R. R. Ricou and sons operated fish houses in Jensen and all up and down the east coast. Jensen alone shipped as many as two hundred barrels daily, plus carloads of bottom fish and mackerel. Jensen was one of the first places in this area to have an ice manufacturing plant.
 

A small business section was built east of the railroad tracks on Main Street and along the Indian River. John Jensen also constructed a large, three-story hotel named the Al Fresco, the first hotel south of St. Augustine. It became the social center of Jensen, which was the largest town in the area. Besides the local school, post office, churches and cemeteries, there was also a bowling alley, bakery, grocery and dry goods store, meat market, town hall, bank, barbershop, livery stable, boat shop, Masonic Lodge and train depot. Many of these were burned in the disastrous fire of 1908 that destroyed almost the entire business sections of Jensen.

A second fire in 1910 burned the Al Fresco Hotel. Then the bank moved to Ft. Pierce. The pineapple industry had been declining for several years due in part to nematode infestation and high freight rates. Jensen soon became a quiet village.

In 1925, Jensen left St. Lucie County joining with Stuart and its southern neighbors to form Martin County, named for Florida's Governor Martin. That same year, it was incorporated as Jensen Beach and a mile long wooden bridge was built to Hutchinson Island. Soon, the Arches on Dixie Highway were erected to mark the boundaries of Stuart and Jensen. Ocean Breeze Park was established, the first mobile home park in Florida to incorporate as a legal town. Seymour's Inn was the popular place to dine, dance, and have fun. Citrus trees, along with Key limes, guavas, and mangos grew in many backyards, and some folks still had a small pineapple patch. Winter tourists, as well as 'locals' enjoyed the quiet atmosphere, great fishing, and long stretches of empty beaches.

Today, after surviving the joys and difficulties of its unique past, old Jensen Village is willing and eager to share its slice of old Florida with the new Floridians. So you all, come on down and leave your footprints in the sands of Jensen Beach.