About Fort Walton Beach

The City of Fort Walton Beach, home to approximately 22,000 people, was first created and chartered as a municipality in 1937. The city is relatively, its history dates back thousands of years. There's archeological evidence of five distinct Indian periods between 600 - 1650 A.D. Later, there were pirates, the most notorious being Billy Bowlegs between 1500 - 1800, and there was a Civil War encampment. In the early days Fort Walton was known both as Brooks Landing (when John Thomas Brooks and his family settled there in 1868) and Camp Walton (for the Civil War encampment). It was renamed Fort Walton when a Civil War cannon was discovered in 1932 and excavated from an Indian mound in the present downtown area on Santa Rosa Sound. Read more about the history here.

• Official City Information
• Visitors Bureau
• Eglin AFB
• Okaloosa County
• Chamber of Commerce