PERDIDO KEY
THE PERFECT ISLAND
BY FRED GARTH
Perdido Key State Park
The name Perdido originates way
back to 1693 when cartographer and
scientist Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora
was sent to find the entrance to the
deep-water bay that shifting sands
from hurricanes had concealed. Long
story short, he eventually found it and
named it, and future marketing gurus
exploited it with catchy slogans.
This fantabulous place may have
been lost once, but the planet’s beachworshiping,
waterlubber crowd now
treks here from Jersey to Germany
to dig their toes into the whitest
beaches in the world — “beaches as
white as snow” — as poet Fred Scott
proclaimed in “The Finding of Perdido.”
From my expert perspective, an
old-ish dude who has lived on Perdido
Key since 1991 and first came here
as a child in the 1960s, it’s still the
paradise Góngora rediscovered 327
years ago. Sure, now we have some
luxury condos, first-class seafood
eateries, funky bars, and sun-crisped
beachgoers, but forward-thinking
planners designated more than 60
percent of the island as park land.
There’s a two-mile stretch of state
14 Learn more at visitpensacola.com/perdidokey