# Why Florida, Not Alabama, Owns the Panhandle Coast

- Original post: https://www.twitter.com/i/status/2120447476834480272
- Source account: [@JoshuaBarzon](https://x.com/JoshuaBarzon)
- Source language: English
- Duration: 1:51
- Published: 2026-11-11
- Canonical URL: https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast

## Transcript

[0:00](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast) Look at Alabama's coastline. It's barely a stub.

[0:03](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=3) About 53 miles of Gulf Beach squeezed around Mobile Bay.

[0:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=6) Now look east. This long strip of white sand below Alabama is Florida.

[0:11](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=11) Pensacola, Destin, Panama City, hundreds of miles from Miami, but still Florida.

[0:16](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=16) Alabama became a state in 1819. Florida waited until 1845.

[0:21](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=21) So how did the younger state end up with the coast?

[0:24](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=24) When Alabama's borders were drawn, that coast wasn't American.

[0:27](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=27) It belonged to Spain. Spain had claimed this whole Gulf Coast for centuries.

[0:31](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=31) In 1763, Britain took it over and split it in two: East Florida, the peninsula, and West Florida, a long coastal strip running all the way to the Mississippi River.

[0:41](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=41) Twenty years later, Spain got both back.

[0:43](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=43) Then the United States started nibbling.

[0:45](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=45) It claimed West Florida came with the Louisiana Purchase.

[0:48](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=48) Spain disagreed. So in 1810, American settlers near Baton Rouge rebelled, and the US annexed their area.

[0:54](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=54) In 1813, American troops marched into Mobile and simply took it.

[0:58](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=58) They stopped at a small river called the Perdido.

[1:01](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=61) Everything west of it went to the Mississippi Territory, which later became the states of Mississippi and Alabama.

[1:06](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=66) That's how Alabama got its stub of coast.

[1:08](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=68) East of the Perdido, Spain held on to Pensacola.

[1:11](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=71) So when Alabama became a state, its southern border just hit the Spanish line.

[1:15](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=75) Two years later, Spain sold the rest of Florida to the United States.

[1:19](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=79) The old West Florida strip stayed attached to Florida.

[1:22](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=82) Alabama never stopped wanting it. In 1869, Alabama offered Florida one million dollars in bonds for everything west of the Apalachicola River.

[1:30](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=90) Both sides signed an agreement. Panhandle voters even said yes.

[1:34](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=94) Then the deal quietly fell apart. So the beaches south of Alabama are Florida's because of a Spanish line, an American land grab that stopped at one small river, and a sale that almost happened.

[1:45](https://www.translate.mom/transcript/akIrlugZdfuK/en/why-florida-not-alabama-owns-the-panhandle-coast?t=105) Today, that strip is worth billions. A million dollars would've been the bargain of the century.