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Florida Counties

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Florida Counties

In 1821, there were only two Counties in Florida: Escambia to the west and St. Johns to the east. From these two Counties were formed 67 today.In 1968, the electors of Florida granted local voters the power to adopt charters to govern their counties. Charters are formal written documents that confer powers, duties, or privileges on the county. To date, there are 19 charter Counties in Florida. Collectively these Counties are home to more than 75 percent of Florida's residents.

Gulf County, Florida

Gulf County History, Geography, Demographics, Cities and Towns, and Education

County Seat: Port Saint Joe
Year Organized: 1925
Square Miles: 565

Court House:

1000 Cecil G. Costin, Sr. Blvd
County Courthouse
Port Saint Joe, FL 32456-1653

Etymology - Origin of County Name

Gulf of Mexico

Demographics:

County QuickFacts: Census Bureau Quick Facts

County History

Gulf County, created in 1925, was named for the Gulf of Mexico. Wewahitchka, was its first county seat and the 1927 Gulf County Courthouse is still in existence. In 1965 the county seat was moved to Port Saint Joe, which under its original name Saint Joseph, had been the site of Florida's first Constitutional Convention in 1838.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of 745 square miles (1,928 km²), of which, 555 square miles (1,436 km²) of it is land and 190 square miles (492 km²) of it (25.52%) is water.

Neighboring Counties:

North: Calhoun County
Northeast: Liberty County
Southeast: Franklin County
Southwest: Gulf of Mexico
Northwest: Bay County

Cities and Towns:

- Port St. Joe (County Seat)	city	Incorporated Area
- Wewahitchka	city	Incorporated Area

County Resources:

Enter County Resources and Information Here

County Resources

The history of our nation was a prolonged struggle to define the relative roles and powers of our governments: federal, state, and local. And the names given the counties, our most locally based jurisdictions, reflects the "characteristic features of this country!"

But age, size and colorful names of our counties isn't the only reason to explore counties' role in American history, or the history of county government itself. In fact, the story of county government reflects the larger meanings of American history.

Today's counties are the most flexible, locally responsive and creative governments in the US. They are the most diverse, varying in size, population, geography, and governmental structure. In their politics and policies, they express a 1990's political slogan "Think globally, act locally."