Sunny David wrote an outstanding account of the history of Perdido Bay in his book "The Lost Bay." His story centers around the son of one of Escambia County's earliest entrepreneurs, Theo Dunwoody Baars Jr. He was born on November 28, 1876 in Pensacola, Florida to the union of Henry Gerhardt Sophus Baars (1844-1909) and Mary Ellison Dunwoody (1855-1923). His father arrived in America from Germany not long before the Civil War erupted. He enlisted in the Confederate Savannah Guards where he was twice wounded then captured at Sailor's Creek in 1865.
After the war he came back to Georgia where he saw an ten-year-old girl handing out small Confederate flags. Six years later he married the now 16-year old Mary Ellison Dunwoody. His business ventures brought him to Pensacola where he established himeself as a lumber and real estate tycoon. His wife talked her husband into buying her 6,000 acres where her plan was to sell it to wealthy northerners. But a downturn in the economy prevented the plan from reaching fruition. However, the land would later become Cordova Park, Cordova Mall, Sacred Heart Hospital, Pensacola State College, and Washington High School. One of their eight children was Theo Jr. who joined his father in the booming family enterprise. Eventually, the young Theo would marry Mary Elizabeth Firestone (1897-1991) whose family had holdings in the expanding rubber industry. Within a myriad of other companies, Theo Jr. would establish the Escambia Hotel Company in 1925 with plans to build a $1,000,000 luxury hotel on the Gulf of Mexico at Gulf Beach.
To bring this grand scheme about, he had to have the assurance from the Escambia County Commissioners that they would build an access road through his property from Warrington to Gulf Beach. Luckily, the Intercoastal Canal had not been built at time so no bridge was needed. According to the Pensacola News article of March 14, 1924, the hotel would have a stadium, athletic fields, polo field, tennis courts, marina, boat club house, skeet range, a dance and bathing pavilion, a theater, and a movie cinema. Theo Jr. acquired the three miles of beachfront by buying the "warrants" from the Spanish American soldiers. The men were paid for their military duty with these warrants, however they wanted cash instead! When all was ready, he began sinking his pilings 75 feet into the sand. But after spending $500,000, the economy took a spiral downwards, which in turn eventually doomed the building boom in 1926 and brought an end to Hotel Escambia. The icing on the cake was the stock market crash of 1929!
With the demise to Theo's dream, the hotel became known to the locals as the Baars' Hotel and its foundation stood for the next 70 years as a solemn icon of what could have been! It was finally demolished in the mid-1990's to make way for more modern structures. Can you imagine if this luxury behemoth had been successful in 1924? What would Gulf Beach be like today if they had obtained a 25 year head start on Pensacola Beach, who began its hotel construction in the 1950's. Perdido Key would not follow suit until 1987. Theo Jr. would pass away no December 5, 1941 (two days before Pearl Harbor) in Pensacola and was buried in the St. John's Cemetery. Mary would join him fifty years later in 1991. (Some of the information came from Sunny David, The Lost Bay, the History of Perdidio Key)
The Baars estate on 12th Avenue, Pensacola, Florida
Driving the Pilings (Photo courtesy of the Herman White family)
The hotel's foundation (Photo courtesy of the Herman White family)
The remnants of the Baar's Hotel, aka the Escambia Hotel (1924-1990's)
The old draw bridge after the dredging of the Intercoastal Waterway Canal
(Photo courtesy of George Kee)