Today I wanted to look back to one of the original advertisements for G.W. Bingham’s 1925 Golden Gate development as it provides insight. This 1925 South Florida Developer advertisement lauds “Golden Gate on the Beautiful St. Lucie Inlet,” and displays a drawing of an ornate bridge centered in a rising sun.

We may not think of this so often today, but the location of the Golden Gate neighborhood off of Indian Street and St. Lucie Boulevard in Stuart, Florida, lines up with the St. Lucie Inlet and sunrise.

The rare aerial above, taken by Fairchild Aerials Inc. of New York City in 1925 shows the rectangular lines of Golden Gate subdivision (created from Port Sewall 1911)  in 1925. The peninsula of Sewall’s Point lies just east of Golden Gate, between the St. Luice River and the Indian River Lagoon, Hutchinson Island follows east  along the Atlantic Ocean.

The St. Lucie Inlet itself is not quite visible and lies beyond the tip of South Hutchinson Island, where today’s Sailfish Point is located.

Perhaps the sand and bars we see in the aerial in the Lagoon are remnants or recent dredging of the times from the St. Lucie Inlet dug 1st  in 1892, just thirty three years before. Or maybe the sand is from the turning basin that was to become the great port? off of Sewall’s Point? Both probably.

Certainly those were lush seagrass beds along the western side of Hutchinson Island. Of course, the people coming to the area were excited about the great fishing. The St. Lucie Canal had been open for only one year…

Our Golden Gate. Our Martin County. All so interesting!

In the future, I will be writing about the Sunrise Inn of which you see in the above close up on the left side of the pointy triangle along the St. Lucie River known not as Golden Gate – Gateway to the Sunrise, but as Hell’s Gate. 🙂

~May is Historic Preservation Month. Thanks for being part!