25 years ago in Destin: An Indian mound is found in Sandestin

Here’s what was reported in the Destin Log on June 30 and July 4, 1984:

•Following a federal call for states to raise the drinking age to 21, Destin bar owners said that if Florida went along, it wouldn’t be a major blow, though it would certainly cut into spring-break business.

“When the drinking age limit went frin 18 to 19,” Bob Bonezzi of Nightown told The Log, “we thought it was the end of the world ... and it wasn’t.”

Don Malone of the Grand Slam said 90 percent of his customers were 19 or 20, but given the benefits of raising the drinking age, “I don’t care if 100 of them leave.”
Skeptics said the only difference if the change went through would be parents or older friends buying the booze for younger companions.

•The areas Metropolitan Transportation Organization’s five year plan includes a recommendation that the Florida Department of Transportation consider a “Piney Point Bridge” across Choctawhatchee Bay.

•A Henderson Beach State Park spokesperson said that because the state hadn’t budgeted any money for the park’s maintenance, nothing could be done to clean up the accumulated litter until the new fiscal year began in October.

•The Destin Fire District showed off its new fire-crash truck for dealing with plane crashes, but said it still needed a fire-access lane to reach any crashes on the Destin Airport runway.
Okaloosa County Engineer Dave Heinrich said the access lane was in the works, but had been held up while the county waited on the permit for an Airport Road drainage plan.

•Captains in the annual Shark Tourney shared their shark-catching secrets. One captain said he was working on a tape that would broadcast sounds of injured fish to lure sharks close.

•The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said it was ready to begin closing the weir in the East Pass jetties, but it was still waiting on the permit to wend its way through the Florida Department of Environmental Protection approval process.

•State officials said Walton County couldn’t put a referendum establishing single-member districts on the November ballot. The state had a constitutional amendment dealing with that issue on the ballot, and until it passed, the officials said, Walton County had no authority to propose it.

•Destin attorney James Alexander told the Walton County Commission that the White Cliffs condominium is potentially “life threatening” because the setback between White Cliffs and one of its neighbors is too small for emergency equipment to get through. Alexander spoke on behalf of two residents in a neighboring condo; the commissioners took no action.

•Archeological researchers studying an Indian mound in Sandestin said it had proven a treasure trove of information about the area’s pre-Columbian Native American population.
“All we knew about (before) was the pottery types,” Prentice Thomas of New World Research told The Log.

•AAA reported that Florida prices for unleaded self-service gas had held steady since May, at $1.18.

•Destin’s taxable property was worth $508 million, up from $430 million in 1983. Okaloosa County’s total tax base was $2.1 billion.

•Condo sales passed $53 million in January through May.

•The state decided that runoff from the “new 98” that was about to be built north of Old 98 could be channeled safely into Old Pass Lagoon.

•South Walton Utility and the Destin East Mobile Home Park failed to reach a settlement over the tap fees SWU claimed the park owed.

•Walton County Sheriff Quinn McMillan said that in response to South Walton’s growth, the coming year would see more deputies operating there.

•Beachside Cafe held its grand opening.