For a long time, if you ate an oyster in the southern United States, there was a fair chance it came from Apalachicola Bay. The shallow, brackish bay, where the Apalachicola River meets the Gulf of Mexico, produced the great majority of Florida's oysters, and the town of about two thousand people lived by them. Then the reefs collapsed, after years of drought, reduced river flow and overharvesting, and in 2020 the state closed the wild oyster harvest for five years. The oyster boats and the shucking houses are fewer now, and the town is working out what comes next, but the seafood restaurants still serve shrimp, fish and farmed oysters.
Apalachicola has an older story too. In the nineteenth century it was one of the busiest cotton ports on the Gulf, shipping bales that came down the river on steamboats from Georgia and Alabama. Brick warehouses and old merchants' houses from that era still line the streets, giving the town a handsome, slightly faded character. A local doctor, John Gorrie, built an ice-making machine here in the 1840s to cool fever patients, a pioneering step toward refrigeration and air conditioning, and a small museum honours him.
The road in is US 98, the coast road of the Big Bend, which runs along the edge of the Gulf through pine flatwoods and salt marsh. It is level and mostly straight, with long sweeping bends and open views over water. The approach from the east crosses the long bridge over the bay from Eastpoint, and the view of the river mouth and the town's waterfront is lovely. From Eastpoint, a causeway leads out to St. George Island, with wide sandy beaches and a state park.
Apalachicola has fuel, food and places to stay, though the choices are limited and prices reflect the tourist trade. Port St. Joe, about thirty kilometres west, is a little larger. Weather on this coast is the main concern. Summer is hot and humid, with storms almost every afternoon, and hurricanes are a real risk from June to November. Winter is mild and quiet, the best time to see the town at its slow, salty, unhurried pace.