About Fort Pierce/Vero Beach
The nickname "Treasure Coast" describes a lovely, untarnished stretch of coastline from St. Lucie Inlet to Sebastian Inlet that indeed earns the name in the figurative sense. But also in literal terms: The Treasure
  Camping is a popular activity at the Sebastian Inlet State Park |
Survivors from the shipwrecks of yore set up camp near the pass at Sebastian. On this same site today sits McLarty Treasure Museum, a modest facility inside surfer and fishing haven Sebastian Inlet State Park. The park begins a natural stretch of beach and protected wilderness to the south that includes Pelican Island National Wildlife Refuge. The nation’s first wildlife refuge, it is a rookery accessible only by boat in the middle of the Indian River, the name for the waters that separate island from mainland in these parts. The name is tantamount to oranges, the biggest and juiciest Florida grows.
Island-side, Route A1A makes a gorgeous drive, alternating clean-shaven, upscale housing communities with natural, rugged beauty. Beach accesses along the way are nattily maintained and family-friendly with playgrounds and facilities. Vero Beach is the only true metropolis on this island known as North Hutchinson. It spreads to the mainland, a vital city that hosts the Dodgers baseball club for spring training and McKee Botanical Garden, both longtime attractions.
Its oceanside adjunct is made up of art galleries, fashionable shops, seafood restaurants, small resorts, a professional regional theater and beach parks, including a boardwalk atop the dunes. South of Vero Beach, nature takes over once again. Parks on the beach and leeward sides of the island protect sea turtles and mangroves. At Pepper Park in Fort Pierce, a favorite access for the beach and Intracoastal fishing and canoeing, the Navy SEAL Museum honors the birthplace of an elite Navy fighting corps. Here, the first frogmen trained for the D-Day invasion. Recreational divers today are more interested in the Urca de Lima, the southernmost treasure fleet shipwreck.
Fort Pierce comes in three parts, and its so-called North Beach component on North Hutchinson Island is most laid-back and least developed, protected by a state park at Fort Pierce Inlet, another hotspot for surfing as well as
  Kayakers enjoy the inlet waters |
Across the South Bridge lies Fort Pierce part three and the northernmost point of Hutchinson Island. At the base of the bridge you can explore the area’s treasure-hunting and citrus-growing past and present at the local historical museum, or peak into aquariums at St. Lucie County Marine Center.
Past the mom-pop resorts and beachy atmosphere of the north end, the island becomes almost desolate. A series of beach accesses are mostly undeveloped, loved by seclusionists and horseback riders. Another bridge connects the island to mainland at Jensen Beach, where a full-service beach access accommodates families. Across the bridge lies its charmingly restored historic downtown area.
Stuart spreads from mainland to beachfront, marking the southernmost point of the Treasure Coast. Its redeveloped downtown, with its trademark pink sidewalks, has been a model for other Florida cities with its inviting mix of shops, restaurants, theater and historic buildings. Stuart Beach is one of the area’s most popular places to play in the sand and waves.
Bathtub Beach, located on the southern end of Hutchinson Island, is another great beach frequented by locals and visitors alike. A small reef about 100 feet offshore creates lagoon-like shallow waters that make this a favorite for families with small children. There’s also a boardwalk and dune and river trails, not to mention plenty of parking.
A museum devoted to a prolific inventor, an oceanographic center, and a historic house of refuge provide convenient and intriguing alternatives to the beach.
Accommodations on Hutchinson and North Hutchinson Island and the mainland range from fish camps and B&Bs to a Disney resort and an all-inclusive riverfront Club Med with its own on-property circus.
Our first citizens: Florida's earliest residents developed
their own societies to match their environments
By JOE CRANKSHAW
joe.crankshaw@scripps.com
March 6, 2007
The first people in Florida and the Treasure Coast were
hunter-gatherers, existing on what they could kill or pick
from trees and bushes. But their society evolved into a
complex system of chiefdoms much like the European feudal
system. People began to live in wooden-walled towns, engage
in rudimentary agriculture, create mound complexes for
political and religious purposes and trade inside and
outside Florida.
The first people's ancestors had come from Asia more than
12,000 years ago, over the land bridge that is now the
Aleutian Islands and across North America. The Florida and
Treasure Coast those people found were much different from
the ones in which we live.
Historian Jerald T. Milanich notes in his book, "Florida's
Indians from Ancient Times to the Present" that the
Pleistocene or Great Ice Age was ending, and Florida was
cooler and drier. It was also about twice its present size
because the sea level was lower, as water was sealed up in
huge glaciers. The land we now know as the Treasure Coast
was 10 miles inland.
Here is a look at the tribes and their history.
THE TRIBES
The Calusa: Evolving from an earlier people, who lived o
Calusa took advantage of relatively plentiful food supplies.
They dominated the east coast tribes.
The Tequesta: The Tequesta had much the same culture as
the Calusa. There is evidence around their dwelling sites
in Dade and Broward County that they engaged in trade by
canoe with the Bahamas and Cuba. Their territory apparently
extended into what is now Palm Beach County.
The Jeagas: The Jeagas were a more primitive tribe of
hunters, fishermen and warriors, if the Quaker writer
Jonathan Dickinson's description after his shipwreck among
them in 1696, is correct. They inhabited the east coast from
what is now mid-Palm Beach County to the Jupiter Inlet.
They left an extensive collection of mounds including some
for burial, but most for refuse such as shells and animal bones.
The Hobe and the Ais: The Hobe and the Ais or Ays, which
may be different Spanish names for the same tribe, lived
from the Jupiter Inlet north to the Cape Canaveral area.
They lived on hunting and fishing. The Ays had a village on
Hutchinson Island just north of the present House of Refuge
plus other sites near present day Fort Pierce, Vero Beach
and Sebastian. A large village once stood on the south side
of what is now the St. Lucie Inlet, but erosion washed it
into the sea. They built burial mounds and shell middens,
one of the largest forms the base for the old Leach Ma
Lighthouse, but the largest once stood in Sebastian.
The latter was mined for shell for roads in the 1920s.
The Caribes and Taino: The Caribes and Taino were two
tribes from the Caribbean Islands, who made long voyages
between the islands in their long canoes. They were
skillful navigators, tradesmen and warriors. They were
the first of the native peoples met by Columbus in 1492.
Some historians believe they settled in South Florida around
the Miami River. They traded and raided along the Treasure Coast.
In the late 1940s, a Caribe burial of about a dozen individuals
was found on Hutchinson Island between Jensen Beach and
Fort Pierce.
TIMELINE
10,000 B.C. to 8,000 B.C.
These people lived in a temperate climate hunting mastodons, bison
and other large animals. They had no fixed dwellings. Historians
be'lieve some of them came north through the Caribbean and Bahamas
to settle in Florida.
8,000 B.C. to 750 B.C.
The Ice Age has ended and the gla'ciers are melting, causing the
sea level to rise, changing Florida's envi'ronment. The discovery
of an 8,000 year old cemetery at Windover Farms in Titusville in
our area. The burials revealed advanced skills in weaving, medical
care, tool making, agriculture and social skills.
750 B.C. to 1500 A.D.
This is the period when native cul'tures developed. In the north,
the St. Johns Culture eventually created the Timucuan and the
Deptford Cul'ture created the Apalachee. In south Florida it produced
the Glad'es Culture, centered on the south'west coast among the Calusa
Indi'ans, but stretching east to include the tribes of our region. The
native peoples of this period traded shells, fish bones and freshwater
pearls for copper, iron ore and corn seeds from the people of the
northern part of the continent.
Until the 1500s, the people of Florida had no contact with Europeans.
They traveled among their tribes for purposes of trade and warfare,
often venturing to sea either on purpose or by accident to make long
canoe trips. Evidence, in the form of burials and trade items, of
visits from people of the Caribe and Taino cultures has been found on
Hutchinson Island.
But in 1513, their world changed forever when Europeans landed in
Florida.
