CRESTVIEW — One-hundred years ago today, the Florida Legislature created the state’s 52nd county, but county voters made it official three months later.
In 1913, Walton County state Rep. William Mapoles, of Laurel Hill, tried to create the 944-square-mile Yellow River County. It would have been named for the river that split the new county in two, or for Woodrow Wilson, the nation’s newly elected president.
Mapoles’ initial effort failed.
In 1915, Mapoles gained a valuable ally in Walton and Holmes counties’ Sen. B.H. Lindsay, who jointly sponsored a tweaked version of the 1913 bill. There was one major difference: the new county’s name.
The proposed Yellow River County and Wilson County names were jettisoned in favor of Okaloosa County. But in a sense, Mapoles’ original name prevailed. The Choctaw phrase “oka lusa” means “black water,” the Indians’ name for the Yellow River, describing its appearance due to pine tree tannins that darken the riverbed below the clear waters.
Baker Block Museum Director Ann Spann, writing in “The Heritage of Okaloosa County, Florida,” stated that Santa Rosa legislators resisted Mapoles’ 1915 bill.
Sen. R.A. McGeachy of Santa Rosa almost succeeded in killing it, Betty Curenton and Claudia Patten stated in "Crestview: The Forkland." However, opponents eventually conceded, provided a provision for a referendum by affected voters was included in the bill.
On June 3, Chapter 6937 was entered into Florida Laws of 1915, “an Act Providing for the Creation of Okaloosa County, in the State of Florida, and for the Organization and Government Thereof.”
Next, voters had to add their approval. On Sept. 7, 1915, voters in Santa Rosa and Walton counties' affected portions went to the polls and confirmed their support for creating Okaloosa County.
Santa Rosa legislators hoped to block the new county in the popular election when they couldn’t in the Legislature, but they didn’t succeed.
“The vote in the Walton section was about 4-1 in favor of the new county, but was only about two to one in the Santa Rosa section,” Spann stated.
Okaloosa County was officially established.
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This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: Today is – sort of – Okaloosa County’s centennial