St. George Island
— — the barrier island the Gulf has been left alone to shape.
Not only on a wall.
“A narrow barrier island twenty-eight miles long, lying off Florida's Apalachicola coast in the curve of the Forgotten Coast. The east end is held by a state park of dunes, slash pine, and untouched beach; the west end carries the small year-round community and the bridge back to Eastpoint. The oysters in the bay behind the island made the town across the water.
St. George Island, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
St. George Island is a barrier island in Franklin County, Florida, separating Apalachicola Bay from the Gulf of Mexico. It runs roughly twenty-eight miles east to west and rarely more than a mile wide. The Bryant Patton Bridge, a four-mile crossing completed in 1965 and rebuilt in 2004, connects the island's western half to Eastpoint on the mainland. The eastern nine miles are held within Dr. Julian G. Bruce St. George Island State Park, established in 1980 and stretching to the cut that separates the island from Little St. George.
The water on the bay side built the economy of the whole coast. Apalachicola Bay supplied roughly ten percent of all oysters sold in the United States until the 2012 collapse, and the bay was closed to wild harvest in 2020 to allow recovery through 2025 and beyond. The cause was the long reduction in fresh water reaching the bay from the Apalachicola River, set against drought and over-harvest. Recovery is being measured by the Apalachicola National Estuarine Research Reserve, headquartered in Apalachicola across the bridge.
The state park's nine miles of beach are open from eight in the morning to sunset for a small per-vehicle fee. The Cape St. George Light, a 77-foot brick lighthouse originally built in 1852 and rebuilt in 2008 after the original tower collapsed into the Gulf, stands at the centre of the island village. The annual St. George Island Charity Chili Cookoff fills the village every March, and the loggerhead sea turtle nesting season runs from May into October along the protected dunes.