Editing Florida panhandle (section)

==History==
{{for|the colonial history of the area before 1821|West Florida}}

===19th century===
Throughout the 19th century the panhandle was sparsely populated, dotted in places with small farming communities, none of which had as many as a thousand residents. Many panhandle residents had, in fact, migrated to the area from Alabama and had relatives there; it was also easier to trade with and travel to southern Alabama than to reach East Florida by slow, arduous journey across the thick cypress swamps and dense pine forests of the panhandle. It was natural for West Floridians to feel that they had more in common with their nearby neighbors in Alabama than with the residents of the peninsula, hundreds of miles away.<ref name="books.google.com">{{cite web |title=The American Annual Cyclopaedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4qyMkv2UBzIC&q=west+florida+annexation+alabama+1868&pg=PA10 |date=May 7, 1870 |via=Google Books}}</ref>

In 1821, Pensacola was the only city (in 19th-century terms) in West Florida, with a population estimated to be about 3,000. In the 1850 census, the enumerated population of Pensacola was 2,164 (including 741 slaves and 350 "free Negroes").<ref name=doherty>[https://brokert10.fcla.edu/DLData/CF/FullText/loaded_fulltext/SN00154113_0037_003.sgm Herbert J. Doherty, "Ante-bellum Pensacola: 1821–1860, ''Florida Historical Quarterly'', January 1959]{{dead link |date=January 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes}}</ref>

====Alabama annexation proposals====
During the course of the century, proposals for ceding the Florida counties west of the [[Apalachicola River]] to [[Alabama]] were often raised:
*In '''1811''', while [[Spanish Florida|Florida was still a Spanish possession]], American settlers in the territory sent a petition to [[United States Congress|Congress]] asking to be incorporated into the [[Mississippi Territory]], which at that time included present-day Alabama.{{cn|date=November 2023}} (See [[West Florida#American annexation|West Florida]] article.)
*In '''1819''', the constitutional convention of Alabama asked Congress to include West Florida in their new state.{{cn|date=November 2023}}
*In '''1822''', only a year after the U.S. acquired the entire [[Territory of Florida|Florida territory]] from [[Spain]], residents of West Florida sent a petition to the [[U.S. House of Representatives]] asking that their section be annexed to Alabama, and Alabama Senator [[John Williams Walker]] also promoted the idea.<ref name=doherty/>
*In '''1826''', the ''Pensacola Gazette'' published a number of letters advocating annexation to Alabama, though the editor remarked that some Pensacolians opposed the idea.<ref name=doherty/>
*In '''1840''', a public meeting in Pensacola produced a demand that West Florida be united with Alabama. In the same year, the territorial Legislature notified Congress that it opposed allowing Alabama to annex West Florida, but in 1844, the year before statehood, the Legislature reversed its stance and asked that West Florida be separated.<ref name=doherty/>
*In '''1856''', advocates of annexation were able to get a bill passed by the Legislature authorizing a referendum on the issue, but Governor [[James E. Broome]] vetoed the measure. The ''Pensacola Gazette'' reported that "annexation is desired by a large majority of the people" of the area.<ref name=doherty/>
*In '''1858''', the Alabama Legislature unsuccessfully tried to open negotiations with Florida on the subject.{{cn|date=November 2023}}
*The annexation issue was eclipsed by the [[Florida in the American Civil War|Civil War]] and the [[History of Florida#Civil War 1861-1865, Reconstruction 1865-1868, and Jim Crow|war's effects]] on the region, but in '''1868''', with Pensacola now connected by the panhandle's sole railroad line to the Alabama cities of [[Mobile, Alabama|Mobile]] and [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]], the issue came to a head again and was finally put to a vote of the people. In that year, the [[Alabama Legislature]] approved a joint resolution authorizing their Governor to negotiate with the Governor of Florida about the annexation of West Florida. An offer of one million dollars in Alabama state bonds, paying 8 percent interest for thirty years, was included. Both states appointed commissioners to make detailed recommendations on the matter.<ref>{{cite web |title=Alabama Laws and Joint Resolutions of the Legislature of Alabama |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3ZM3AAAAIAAJ&q=west+florida+annexation+alabama+1868&pg=PA599 |publisher=J. Boardman |date=May 7, 1868 |via=Google Books}}</ref>
*On November 2, '''1869''', a referendum was held in the West Florida counties (except [[Jackson County, Florida|Jackson]], which was in the throes of bloody racial violence<ref>{{cite web |title=自分流はたらきかた改革 - フリーの道は険しいけれど。 |url=http://www.thejacksoncountywar.com |website=The Jackson County War}}</ref>), with a result of 1162 to 661 in favor of annexation.<ref name="books.google.com"/> However, political objection developed in Alabama to the high price, and the Legislature took no action on the results of the referendum.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/appletonsannual35unkngoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/appletonsannual35unkngoog/page/n23 9]|quote=west florida alabama 1868.|title=Appletons' Annual Cyclopaedia and Register of Important Events: Embracing Political, Military, and Ecclesiastical Affairs; Public Documents; Biography, Statistics, Commerce, Finance, Literature, Science, Agriculture, and Mechanical Industry|date=May 7, 1871|publisher=Appleton|via=Internet Archive}}</ref>
*In '''1873''', a similar proposal was made in the Alabama Legislature, which the state senate approved, though it did not pass a separate proposal to finance the measure by selling all of Alabama's territory west of the [[Tombigbee River]], including the city of Mobile, to [[Mississippi]].<ref>{{cite book |title=Journal of the Senate of the State of Alabama |url=https://archive.org/details/journalsenatest00alabgoog|quote=west florida . |date=May 7, 1873 |page=[https://archive.org/details/journalsenatest00alabgoog/page/n727 721] |publisher=Montgomery |via=Internet Archive}}</ref> However, nothing came of this action.
*In '''1901''', Alabama made yet another offer when the Legislature appointed a commission to negotiate with Florida about annexation, but this attempt, too, was unsuccessful.{{cn|date=November 2023}}

The building of the [[Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad]], completed in 1883, finally linked Pensacola and the panhandle solidly with the rest of the state and ended the region's isolation, although from time to time during the twentieth century there were still occasional calls for annexation that generated some public discussion but no legislative action.

{{See also|Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad}}

===20th century===
In the last quarter of the century, [[List of Florida hurricanes|hurricanes that directly struck the area]] and caused significant damage included [[Hurricane Eloise]] in 1975, [[Hurricane Kate]] in 1985, and [[Hurricane Erin (1995)|Hurricane Erin]] and [[Hurricane Opal]], both in 1995.

The area was a prime target of the March [[1993 Storm of the Century]].

===21st century===
The panhandle suffered direct hits from [[Hurricane Ivan]] in 2004 and [[Hurricane Dennis]] in 2005. Ivan was the most disastrous, making landfall near [[Gulf Shores, Alabama]], with 120 mile-per-hour (193&nbsp;km/h) winds and a {{convert|14|ft|m|adj=on}} storm surge that devastated Perdido Key and Santa Rosa Island, wrecked the [[Interstate 10 in Florida|Interstate 10]] bridge across [[Escambia Bay]], and destroyed thousands of homes in the region, some as far away as {{convert|20|mi|km}} inland.

On June 23, 2010, oil from the [[Deepwater Horizon oil spill|''Deepwater Horizon'' oil spill]] landed on Pensacola Beach and Navarre Beach, damaging the fishing and tourism industries, and prompting a massive clean-up effort.<ref>{{cite news|title=Oil spill report card: Where are we now?|url=http://www.pnj.com/story/news/local/pensacola/beaches/2015/04/18/oil-spill-report-card/26002141/|access-date=September 28, 2017|work=Pensacola News-Journal|issue=Online edition|date=April 18, 2015}}</ref>

On October 10, 2018, the panhandle suffered a direct hit from [[Hurricane Michael]], with winds as high as 160 mph. Michael was one of only four [[Saffir–Simpson scale|category 5 hurricanes]] to ever hit the US mainland.<ref>{{cite web |last=Wamsley |first=Laurel |title=Hurricane Michael Was A Category 5, NOAA Finds — The First Since Andrew In 1992 |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/04/19/715134716/hurricane-michael-was-a-category-5-noaa-finds-the-first-since-andrew-in-1992 |publisher=NPR |date=April 19, 2019 |access-date=June 1, 2019}}</ref> Thousands of homes were destroyed, and apartment rents in Panama City increased, with a $500 apartment renting for $1000 in 2019. Recovery from Hurricane Michael was not complete in June 2019, and disaster relief for the panhandle remained stalled in Congress.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Sullivan |first1=Becky |last2=Caldwell |first2=Noah |last3=Shapiro |first3=Ari |title=Nearly 8 Months After Hurricane Michael, Florida Panhandle Feels Left Behind |url=https://www.npr.org/2019/05/31/727905462/nearly-8-months-after-hurricane-michael-florida-panhandle-feels-left-behind |publisher=NPR |date=May 31, 2019 |access-date=June 1, 2019}}</ref>