How the Treasure Coast Got Its Name

The Sebastian area is called the Treasure Coast because a Spanish treasure fleet carrying gold and silver was wrecked by a hurricane off the barrier island south of Sebastian Inlet in July 1715 (1715 Fleet marker).

The nickname is far younger than the wrecks. NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory writes that a passing hurricane in 1955 washed away dunes around the old salvage camps near Sebastian Inlet, revealing artifacts and silver coins, and touched off renewed salvage by local builder Kip Wagner and his Real 8 Company (NOAA AOML). They recovered thousands of coins, pieces of jewelry and a number of cannon, and the discovery led to a state park and museum and to the area being dubbed the Treasure Coast.

The name was in print by the mid-1960s. The Indian River County Library's Vero Beach history finding aid lists a Fort Pierce News Tribune feature titled Florida's Treasure Coast, dated December 22, 1965 (Indian River County Library). Sebastian Inlet now marks the northern end of the Treasure Coast region's 110-mile shoreline (TCRPC).

No official record names the person who coined Treasure Coast; the federal and county sources tie the name to the salvage of the 1715 fleet rather than to an author (NOAA AOML).

The best documented voice from that era is Kip Wagner's own, from a search that began at the old salvage camps near Sebastian Inlet. NOAA lists his account of the finds, Drowned Galleons Yield Spanish Gold, published in National Geographic Magazine in January 1965, among its references, along with his 1966 book Pieces of Eight, written with L.B. Taylor Jr. (NOAA AOML).

The earliest dated use in the county library's Vero Beach history file is the December 22, 1965 Fort Pierce News Tribune feature Florida's Treasure Coast, filed with eight photos in the library's oversize Vero Beach history folder (finding aid). Credit for coining the phrase has been claimed in later press accounts, but none of the government or archival sources checked for this page names a coiner, so the origin is documented only as a 1960s name that grew out of the treasure finds.

The 1715 Fleet was a convoy of eleven or possibly twelve homeward bound ships carrying gold and silver coinage to Spain, destroyed by a hurricane late in July 1715 off the beach south of Sebastian Inlet (Florida Division of Historical Resources).

NOAA dates the storm to the early morning of July 31, 1715, and reports that three ships sank in deep water while the other eight were driven onto the coast from present-day Fort Pierce to Wabasso; of 2,500 sailors and passengers, 1,000 died (NOAA AOML). About 1500 men, women and children who survived and reached shore made camp on the barrier island near the place where the flagship sank, according to the 1974 state marker for the Survivors' and Salvagers' Camp (marker). From St. Augustine, the Spanish governor Corcoles dispatched mostly Indian auxiliaries to feed the castaways near Sebastian Inlet and to guard the salvage crews who worked from that camp.

Spanish salvagers recovered much of the cargo and moved it to Havana, yet much more stayed on the ocean floor. The National Park Service says the sunken ships lay forgotten for more than 200 years until modern treasure hunters found several of them (National Park Service). The 2020 state marker at the Wabasso bridge notes that remnants of the fleet are still found on these beaches (Wabasso bridge marker).

Salvage set off by a 1955 hurricane, and carried to a national audience by Wagner's January 1965 National Geographic article, turned the 1715 wrecks into the coast's name (NOAA AOML).

Interest in the wrecks predates Wagner. The National Park Service records that the Urca de Lima was rediscovered in 1928 and heavily salvaged for the next 50 years, until Florida stopped issuing salvage permits for it in the 1980s and opened it to the public (NPS). NOAA adds that amateur archaeologist Charles Higgs found evidence of the salvage camps in the dunes near Sebastian Inlet in the early 1940s, and that later work by the Florida Park Service tied the camps to the Silver Fleet wrecks (NOAA AOML).

The 1955 hurricane exposed silver coins around those camps near Sebastian Inlet and set off the Real 8 Company's search, whose recoveries ran to thousands of coins, jewelry and cannon. NOAA credits that discovery with the establishment of a state park and museum and with the area being dubbed the Treasure Coast (NOAA AOML).

In law the Treasure Coast is a four-county planning region, Indian River, St. Lucie, Martin and Palm Beach, whose shoreline runs 110 miles from Boca Raton north to Sebastian Inlet (Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council).

Section 186.512 of the Florida Statutes assigns Indian River, Martin, Palm Beach and St. Lucie counties to the Treasure Coast Regional Planning Council (Florida Statutes). The council, which has worked since 1976, gives the region 3,589 square miles and a population of over 2 million, and it fixes the northern end of its coast at Sebastian Inlet (TCRPC). That puts Sebastian and the Indian River County shore at the top of the statutory Treasure Coast.

The wreck coast is narrower than the legal region. NOAA places the eight ships driven ashore between present-day Fort Pierce and Wabasso (NOAA AOML), while the statute also takes in Martin and Palm Beach counties. A map labeled Treasure Coast may stop near Fort Pierce or run to Boca Raton, depending on whether it follows the history or the statute.

The 1715 Fleet story behind the name can be seen at a state marker and the McLarty Treasure Museum just south of Sebastian Inlet, at the Wabasso bridge on County Road 510, and at an underwater preserve near Fort Pierce.

Sebastian Inlet State Park lists the McLarty Treasure Museum as the place that highlights the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet, with park entry at $8 per vehicle (Florida State Parks). The park warns that beach access from the south side is unavailable during the Sebastian Inlet bridge construction, which matters for anyone heading to the camp marker, since it stands south of the inlet.

The 2020 marker for the A.B. Michael Bridge, the County Road 510 crossing from Wabasso to Orchid, ends by noting that the bridge leads directly to the beaches of the Treasure Coast where remnants of the 1715 Spanish Silver Fleet are still found (Wabasso bridge marker). The National Park Service describes the Urca de Lima as the only surviving wreck from the 1715 flota and the state's first Underwater Archaeological Preserve, lying in 10 to 15 feet of water with a mooring buoy to use in place of an anchor (NPS).

Remnants of the 1715 Fleet still turn up on the beaches reached by the Wabasso bridge, and the law decides who keeps them. Section 267.061 declares that treasure trove abandoned on state-owned lands or sovereignty submerged lands belongs to the state, with title in the Division of Historical Resources (Florida Statutes). The division grants Exploration and Recovery Permits for offshore state waters; after analysis and conservation, a portion of the recovered materials may be awarded to the permittee, and the state keeps the remainder for research collections and public display (Division of Historical Resources).