Houses of Refuge in Florida

There were also two life-saving stations built, one just south of the Jupiter Inlet, the other on the Gulf coast on Santa Rosa Island near Pensacola, Florida.

Prior to 1871, efforts to save lives from shipwrecks along the United States coast had been largely provided by volunteers.

[1] In the 1870s, the middle and lower east coast of Florida was described as a "howling wilderness" with no means for shipwrecked sailors to find food, fresh water or shelter.

Other than lighthouses at Cape Canaveral and Jupiter Inlet, and a few settlers at Lake Worth and Biscayne Bay, the coast south of St. Augustine was uninhabited.

The impetus for construction of houses of refuge on the Florida coast came when a ship wrecked between Biscayne Bay and the New River (in present-day Fort Lauderdale) during a hurricane in October 1873.

The shipwrecked sailors were unable to salvage any food or water, and did not succeed in attracting the attention of passing ships.

When they were found several days later, they were said to be "half-starved and existing on spoiled fish" with only brackish water from a marsh behind the beach for drinking.

The resulting publicity in northern newspapers led Sumner Increase Kimball, head of the Revenue Marine Service, to order five houses of refuge constructed along the Florida coast.