Considered one of the world's most beautiful beaches for its sugar
white sand and emerald blue-green waters, Panama City Beach has, until
recently, remained one of Florida's undiscovered treasures.
First documented by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later by the
English, the region remained unsettled because of its inaccessibility
and marauding renegade inhabitants. At a time when property was valued
according to the crops it could grow, the beach was dismissed as a no
man's land unsuitable for habitation. The early 1930s and the Hathaway
Bridge, connecting Panama City Beach to the mainland, marked its
discovery and the beginning of area tourism.