The story of the Old Dutch doesn’t end with hard times during WWII. Instead, it goes big-time. A hotel chain owner, Cliff Stiles, purchased the Old Dutch, a year before the end of the war. At the time, Mr. Cliff Stiles owned many hotels through the southeast. Much like the originator of the Old Dutch, […]
In 1937 Frank Burghduff came to visit the Gulf shores of Panama City Beach. He was so captivated by the beauty of the area that he decided to leave his home state of New York and move to Panama City Beach. He came with the dream to build a beach-front roadhouse that would earn nationwide […]
Joseph Harrison was a well known mail-carrier in Panama City. Harrison, and his wife, also operated a small store in town. Walter Sharpless was more fortunate. He had the incredible foresight to homestead Gulf front property in an era when all other residents thought it was worthless. Furthermore, Sharpless’ vision was affirmed when the Hathaway Bridge […]
The story of how Panama City Beach got started. The beaches in Bay County have a relatively short history as a tourist resort. There were visitors to the Gulf as early as 1909, but not on the same beaches where Panama City Beach is today. Tourists in those days took a motor launch to “Land’s […]
Old Panama City Beach welcomes you to our OPCB blog site. Here you will find interesting posts about the heyday of Panama City Beach, Florida. All of our friends who are familiar with our long standing Facebook page “Old Panama City Beach”, will be happy to know that more in-depth and descriptive posts will appear […]