Anchoring a park stretching several blocks towards St. Joseph Bay, the museum at Constitution Convention Museum State Park is small.
The stories inside, however, are fascinating. While the name of the park is dry, the history of old St. Joseph, the “Sin City” of its era, is certainly not.
A monument to statehoodResources
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Overview
Address: 200 Allen Memorial Way, Port St. Joe
Fees: $2 per person museum fee. Grounds are free.
Restroom: Inside the museum
Land manager: Florida State Parks
Phone: 850-229-8029
Open Thu-Mon 9 AM-noon and 1-5 PM EST. Closed Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day. Leashed dogs welcome on grounds. Picnic tables provided.
Directions
From the junction of SR 71 with US 98 in downtown Port St. Joe, drive east on US 98 (compass south) for 1.5 miles. Turn left on Allen Memorial Way. The parking area adjoins the museum.
About the Park
Inside the small museum, the story of how this coastal community hosted a significant event in Florida history unfolds.
Slippery land deals in Florida date back to well before statehood. The 1805 Forbes Purchase wasn’t exactly a land buy, but a sneaky way to remove native tribes.
Traders for Panton, Leslie & Company and their successor, John Forbes & Company, had built trading posts in St. Marks, Pensacola, and Mobile.
Creeks and Seminoles paid for goods with deerskins, but the traders also extended credit.
The Indian agents of the region suggested the tribes cede a chunk of land to the United States government in return for the government paying off their debts to Forbes.
The Constitution Convention MuseumThe company negotiated with the “Five Civilized Tribes” (Muscogee Creek, Choctaw, Chicksaw, Cherokee, and Seminole) to cede 8 million acres of land.
In Western Florida, the grant was nearly 1.2 million acres, stretching from the western shore of the Apalachicola River to the St. Marks River.
By 1830, with much confusion over who actually owned the land they wanted to homestead, some new residents in Apalachicola picked up and moved west.
They established the town of St. Joseph on the next deep water harbor to the west, off the map of the Forbes Purchase grant.
The grassy mall outside the museum opens to a view of St. Joseph Bay (pre-Hurricane Michael forest)A coastal boomtown, St. Joseph couldn’t compete with Apalachicola’s commercial port. Instead, it became the Las Vegas of its day, a tourist resort on the coast.
The political convention to shape the state’s future was held here instead of the territorial capital of Tallahassee thanks to … politics. The setting probably didn’t hurt.
Fifty-six territorial delegates arrived in early December 1838 to hammer out a constitution to transform Florida from a U.S. territory to a state, setting up the state’s first laws.
They spent the next month doing so, wrapping up January 11, 1839. But it took four more such meetings before Florida was admitted to the Union in 1845.
Inside the museum is a replica meeting room where some of the delegates debate. In their era, Mosquito County took up most of the southern peninsula.
Outside is a massive monument to the achievement of statehood, part of the grassy mall between the pines that stretches towards the bay.
The monument lists all the delegates namesSt. Joseph’s fame didn’t last long. Some said it was the hand of God that wiped out Sin City. From a high of 12,000 residents, it dropped to 6,000 just two years after the convention.
In 1841, a triple whammy of yellow fever, hurricane, and wildfire decimated the town. Most who survived returned to Apalachicola. Only 400 people remained.
A stone marker, a cemetery, this museum, and the name of the bay are the only reminders St. Joseph ever existed.
The coastline remained lightly populated for the next sixty years. Not until the Apalachicola Northern Railroad extended to the harbor did the area revive as Port St. Joe.
In receivership in 1933, the railroad and the entire town then became the property of Alfred du Pont.
His St. Joe Paper Company built a paper mill and felled forests across hundreds of surrounding square miles.
Steam engine exhibitBeyond the details in the museum and on the monument, there is also a steam engine outside.
It’s an example of a timber railroad engine, but the initial railroad established here in 1836 was one of the first in the United States.
Adjoining the steam engine is a 1930s auditorium with distinctive Works Progress Administration architecture.
The Centennial BuildingPort City Trail
Next to the railroad exhibit and auditorium is the park’s access to the Port City Trail.
While largely linear, this interpretive path has several stacked loops circling parks just east of the museum, tallying 2.7 miles.
The Port City Trail starts next to the steam engineVisitors are welcome to hike or bike the trail, which extends almost a linear mile both north and south of the loops.
The south end terminates at Gulf Coast College along US 98, while the northern end follows the bayfront to the public marina.
Near trail’s end at the bayExplore More!
Slideshow
See our photos of Constitution Convention Museum State Park
Nearby Adventures
More worth exploring while you’re in this area.
Salinas Park With a boardwalk over a beautiful coastal scrub to a beach on the sparkling waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Salinas Park provides a picnic grove in a pine forest.
Dead Lakes Park Centered around a mysterious 6,700-acre swamp forest with open waters and shrunken bald cypresses, Dead Lakes Park provides paddlers, hikers, and campers with a place to play.
St. Joseph Peninsula State Park Protecting fragile coastal habitats on the tip of Cape San Blas as it curves around to shelter St. Joseph Bay, T.H. Stone Memorial St. Joseph Peninsula State Park provides a sweep of beachfront on both bay and Gulf to enjoy.
John Gorrie Museum State Park One of only two Floridians honored in the halls of Congress for their achievements, Dr. John Gorrie is the inventor of the icemaker and the father of air conditioning.
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