St. Lucie Village

What is this Blog all about?

We love this part of Florida. Not just for the weather (many of us really do think of it as “Paradise”) but also for its’ rich culture and history. So we decided to spotlight many of the little known “treasures” that are here. Not just the sunken ships but the treasures that are on land in plain sight and undiscovered by most visitors and even most of the residents.

St. Lucie Village

There are “big” treasures and “little “treasures along Florida’s Treasure Coast. This week we’re spotlighting one of the lesser-known Buried Treasures, St. Lucie Village. A small well-preserved historic village nestled along the shoreline of the Indian River directly north of Ft. Pierce.

As you journey through St. Lucie Village you feel like you’ve taken a step back in time. Most of the roadways are still "carriage paths" just about big enough for one car to travel on at a time. You can just imagine a fully decked out horse-drawn carriage traveling along the road passing the stately mansions overlooking the scenic Indian River.

At the east end of Chamberlin Blvd, on the shoreline, stands a stone monument where Fort Capron once stood. It was built as a replacement for Ft. Pierce, after it burned in 1843 and named to honor Captain Erastus Capron, U.S Army First Artillery Officer, as a tribute to his courage during the second Seminole War. The Fort was constructed in 1849 mainly as a guard-post for the Indian River inlet to protect the settlers from renegade Seminole Indians. One of the officers serving at Ft. Capron was Captain Abner Doubleday, better known as the founder of baseball. Also serving was Major James Paine who named this settlement St. Lucie Village.

Major Paine settled on 40 acres of prime land along the Indian River with his family in 1857. Around 1872 Alexander Bell also settled in the Village becoming a neighbor of the Paine family. The cemetery where Maj. Paine and his wife are buried still lies on the front lawn of the St. Lucie Village schoolhouse on Dixie Highway.

Today’s Village residents still feel a strong connection with their history, since many of them are descendants of the original founders. Polly Summerlin Moore, a descendant of Edward Cabell Summerlin who arrived in 1887 to grow pineapples, said the community's first school was in the Summerlin home. “It was open country here,” said Moore, who has lived in the village most of her life. “My grandfather bought land from the Paines and Jones', who were already living here.” The Dixie Summerlin House stands on the corner of US 1 and St. Lucie Blvd. It has since been converted into efficiency apartments.

Although the landscape has changed over the years you can still catch a glimpse of the pristine tranquil view enjoyed by the original inhabitants.

In 1989 St. Lucie Village was added to the National Register of Historic Places for its architectural and historical significance. Out of the 50 structures standing along Indian River Drive about 35 are on the National Registry.

The peaceful, tranquil feeling we experienced when we were traveling through and around St. Lucie Village was so strong that we felt the absence of it as soon as we crossed the border into the "modern" world of US 1. How fortunate we are to have such a unique place right in the middle of our busy world! We salute the residents for keeping this wonderful piece of history in relatively pristine condition for the enrichment of our community and for Florida in general. We know that the people who live there want to keep it just as it is, so we urge anyone who visits to respect that. Thanks St. Lucie Village for a lovely journey!


Feel free to comment below with suggestions on your favorite place or places you’d like to know more about, or with any general feedback about this blog!

Future Blogs will include places like the House of Refuge, Navy Seal Museum, Oak Hammock Park and Veteran's Memorial Park, just to name a few.


Thanks for visiting "Buried Treasures of the Treasure Coast"!

Enjoy Florida, we certainly do!


For Additional Information See:
IndianRiverMagazine.com
Wikipedia.com