From gathering spot to parking lot

The lot on the corner of Marler Street and U.S. Highway 98 used to be a “gathering place for everybody in Destin,” according to History and Fishing Museum Executive Director Jean Melvin.

But by June of this year, the former site of the Destin Post Office and Silver Sands Restaurant will be transformed into a temporary public parking lot and staging area for construction on Mountain Drive. The city paid $3.125 million for the 2.12-acre property. Demolition of the residential buildings on part of the property began immediately after closing the deal on Dec. 31.

The city is currently obtaining bids for the demolishing the freestanding brick building and shopping center left on the lot. Demolition should take about two months, according to Public Services Director Steve Schmidt.

The original Destin Post Office was located in a small wooden building on Calhoun Avenue. But in 1951, the postmaster moved to the newly built shopping plaza on U.S. Highway 98, in between Silver Sands Restaurant and Calhoun/Cox Real Estate Office.

“It was the only place you could go for breakfast in town,” Melvin said. “It was perfect. You could go get your coffee and your mail at the same place.”

Melvin said she remembers Harbor Docks owner Charles Morgan eating breakfast there all the time. Years later, Morgan would give Silver Sands breakfast a new home at Harbor Docks, where it still offers many of the same menu items it did in the 1950s. Although Silver Sands Breakfast owner Ferrell Shipp said the prices have changed.

“They did such a huge business there,” Morgan said. “It was one of the hubs of our little community. I offered them Harbor Docks after the place burned, but it’s a totally separate business beneath our roof.”

Shipp owned Silver Sands Restaurant when it operated next to the old post office, and he remembers the days when his restaurant and the post office were the center of town. He said he offered a $1 fisherman’s special every morning, and most of the fishing fleet would stop by before heading to the docks.

“I opened at four o’clock every morning,” Shipp said. “On the weekends, I’d have 30 or 40 people standing there waiting for me to open. It’s not like that anymore.”

Currently, Silver Sands Breakfast opens daily from 5:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Shipp said he’s turning 85 next week, but he’s still there working seven days a week.

In 1963, the post office left it’s location between Silver Sands and Calhoun/Cox Real Estate Office, although it only moved a feet away to a new brick building on the same lot. The new post office cost $25,000 to build and gave the postmaster at the time, Ross C. Marler, about twice as much space — 1,600 square feet.

Melvin said in those days mail carriers didn’t deliver to people’s homes, so everyone had to come to the post office for their mail. She said most people went around the same time everyday, so the town gossip was always flowing at the post office.

“The parking lot was always full,” Melvin said. “And you would always see someone you knew there.”

Community Development Director Ken Gallander said neither building has been classified as a historical structure.

Not everyone is happy about that.

“This is another step in the march that this town has taken away from charm, class and culture,” said Morgan, a former city councilor. “Whatever sense of uniqueness we had has rapidly disappeared. There’s nothing unique about a parking lot.”