In 1947, Black residents weren’t allowed on St. Johns County beaches. So Frank Butler created his own

ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. – When Gayle Phillips was a younger baby within the early Nineteen Sixties, she remembers her household loading up the automotive and driving right down to the coast to go to Butler’s Seashore.

“Our household would come to Butler Seashore, and simply have the seashore, you already know, all to ourselves with a cooler with our snacks and sodas and stuff and simply hang around all day,” mentioned Phillips.

Phillips, now the Govt Director of the Lincolnville Museum in St. Augustine, and different Black St. Johns County residents weren’t allowed at every other seashores again then. They had been reserved for white residents solely.

However because of the imaginative and prescient of entrepreneur Frank Butler, they’d a spot the place they may safely benefit from the solar and the sand.

Butler got here to St. Augustine within the early 1900s and rapidly made his mark.

“He began working in one other retailer. After which he constructed his personal enterprise, a number of companies as a matter of reality, so he grew to become sort of like a enterprise mogul within the Black neighborhood,” Phillips mentioned.

Finally, Butler began shopping for oceanfront property on Anastasia Island with the dream of making a Black seashore.

Throughout that point in 1927, Black residents weren’t allowed on any of the seashores between Daytona and American Beach in Nassau County.

In 1947, Butler and his actual property firm lastly established Butler’s Seashore subdivision, within the space often known as Butler Seashore right now.

The realm grew to become a bustling leisure space for Black residents. It had a resort, bathhouse, an inn and a on line casino.

Butler even hosted key leaders of the Civil Rights motion at his Black oasis, together with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Even after segregation ended, it remained a landmark for Black residents within the South.

At this time, his legacy continues to reside on contained in the Lincolnville Museum and past.

Butler bought a part of the property to the state for the event of a state park. However after Butler died in 1973 the park declined with out his continuous lobbying for assist, in accordance with the St. Augustine Historic Society. In 1980 the state turned the park over to St. Johns County with the stipulation it was named Frank B. Butler County Park.

The realm south of St. Augustine Seashore continues to be often known as Butler Seashore and plaques at his park there inform his unimaginable and impactful story.