Santa Rosa Island Life-Saving Station

In 1885, the US Life-Saving Service constructed Florida’s first two life-saving stations, one at Jupiter Inlet and one on Santa Rosa Island. Architect J. Lake Parkinson designed the Santa Rosa Life-Saving Station, similar to at least 23 other stations constructed between 1882 and 1891.

The original structure was a two-story building topped with an enclosed lookout tower that had windows on each side. The keeper, his family, and the crew lived on the second story. Dormers, or roofed structures containing windows, on the second level improved visibility. The crew’s quarters were sparsely furnished with iron cots and clothes lockers. A lifeboat stored on a mounted wagon, a utility room, a storage closet, and a living room were all located on the ground floor of the station. The station also had a smaller Monomoy surf boat that launched from the beach. Signal flares and a tripod-mounted lookout glass were kept in the lookout tower. The exterior featured an open porch, a detached kitchen, and a wooden ramp leading to the beach to launch the lifeboat.

The crew of the life-saving station were capable of launching boats from the beach directly into Santa Rosa Sound and the Gulf of America. When ships wrecked close to shore but seas were too rough to launch boats, the crew had an alternative rescue method. They deployed a Lyle gun, cannon-like tool, that launched a projectile attached to a line up to 600 yards off shore. Once the line was secure, the crew aboard the ship could pull out a heavier ‘hawser’ line to be used as safe passage to shore.

On February 25, 1889 Captain Robert Broadbent became the keeper of Santa Rosa Life-Saving Station. Broadbent and his family survived a powerful hurricane on September 26, 1906. The storm was so strong it demolished the original life-saving station. Broadbent recounted his experience in an article in the Pensacola News Journal on October 24. Thanks to his leadership, everyone survived by taking shelter in the surfboat in-between the dunes. The hurricane intensified overnight. Those in the surfboat could only hunker down and listen to the surging storm tear apart the station. At dawn, when the wind had decreased slightly, the survivors rowed across the bay to seek shelter in the woods. Exhausted and frightened, the survivors then walked two miles to the Pensacola Navy Yard where they were taken to the hospital to recover.

In 1908, the current building replaced the destroyed structure. With the establishment of the US Coast Guard in 1915, the Santa Rosa Life-Saving Station became Coast Guard Station 212. In 1986 the Us Coast Guard relocated to Naval Air Station Pensacola. The old life-saving station became a part of Gulf Islands National Seashore. Today, the life-saving station houses the Fort Pickens Campground Registration Office.