308. Pensacola's Excursion Ship Era (1900-1920)

Updated: Mar 28, 2022

In the old days there was no way to get across Escambia Bay to Gulf Breeze or Pensacola Beach except by boat because the Bay Bridge would not be constructed until 1931. In the meantime, Pensacolians loved to travel over to Pensacola Beach or to other points around the bay for rest and relaxation. And naturally, where there's a profit to be made, someone will devise a way to do it. So by the turn of the century, the excursion boat business began in earnest. According to the UWF Department of History "one skipper, Captain Benjamin "Bennie" Pitt Edmundson, owned several small launches that he regularly advertised in the Pensacola Journal from the late 1890's into the 1920's. During the 1910's, Edmundson advanced his business interests by investing in an early beach side resort on Santa Rosa Island and purchased a large steamship, the Baldwin, capable of transporting four hundred excursionists to the island." Bennie Pitt Edmundson (1881-1961) would marry Isabella Ann Broadbent (1878-1958) whose father was Captain Robert Broadbent, head of the Santa Rosa Island Life Saving Station. After the military restricted access to the island during World War I, Edmundson secured permission to reopen the island to excursions and development in March 1919. However, the maritime excursion business of Palafox Wharf culminated with the completion of the Pensacola Bay and Santa Rosa Sound bridges which offered direct land and vehicle access to the resorts and beaches on the island." He and Isabella had two children; Benjamin R. (1908-1978) and Barbara Isabella (1911-1968). Barbara's husband, Lt. Charles Edward Signer, was Naval Aviator #3427 who graduated from the Naval Academy in 1926. On March 30, 1938, he was flying his patrol aircraft off Oahu during the annual fleet exercise. He and his entire crew were lost at sea.