08/10/2026
Take some time off the beach to explore old Florida
Hidden in the coastal forest near Flagler Beach, tall walls of coral stone rise out of the ferns like the bones of something ancient. 🌿 These are the ruins of Bulowville, once one of the largest sugar plantations in Florida, and now one of its most haunting lost places.
In the 1820s, a young planter named John Bulow inherited thousands of acres here and built a sprawling operation along a tidal creek, with a massive sugar mill made of coquina rock. For a few years it thrived. Then came the Second Seminole War in 1836. Bulow, who had actually opposed the removal of the Seminoles, was pushed aside as the army occupied his land, and in the fighting that followed the plantation was burned to the ground. He left Florida and died soon after, still a young man. 🔥
Nearly two centuries later, the mill's blackened arches still stand in the quiet woods, slowly being swallowed by the forest. Walking among them, it is easy to feel how quickly ambition can rise and vanish in Florida. The land always seems to take back what it lends.
