St. Marks: Small Town, Enormous Tab

Welcome to Drive Thru Towns. In this episode, we pull over at the end of the road in North Florida to explore St. Marks—a town of 300 people with enough history to fill a library.

From Spanish forts plastered in lime to look like stone to a pirate who declared his own sovereign nation in a swamp , St. Marks is a place where geography becomes destiny. We dive deep into:

• The "New Pocahontas": The tragic and heroic story of Milly Francis, a fifteen-year-old girl who saved a soldier's life only to have her own father executed at the same fort.

• The Railroad that Killed a Town: How a simple track alignment in 1837 caused the neighboring town of Magnolia to vanish into thin air.

• The Lighthouse that Refused to Die: A structure built from the ruins of a "recycled empire" that survived hurricanes, Civil War shelling, and a direct attempt at demolition.

• The Modern Refuge: How a mosquito-choked "fever swamp" transformed into a world-class restorative landscape for migratory birds and monarch butterflies.

  History isn't behind glass in St. Marks—it's under your feet. Next time you see the sign, don’t just drive through. Pull over.

Host: Andrew Wilcox

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Special thanks to Chloe Jones for the music: chloejonesmusic.co.uk