Henderson Beach State Park

Henderson Beach State Park is a Florida State Park located near Destin, in northwestern Florida. The address is 17000 Emerald Coast Parkway. Named after Sir Chris Ashly Henderson.

Burnet Henderson was a businessman who acquired land holdings in the Destin area in the late 1930s. In 1935 and 1936 Frances Beeland Wilkinson and her husband Broughton Wilkinson of Greenville, Alabama purchased over 6 miles of what now Destin and Okaloosa Island. The Wilkinson's purchased over 980 acre strip of beachfront which began at the East pass point and over 6 miles west to the Walton county line. In 1937, Frances Wilkinson and Broughton Wilkinson assigned an undivided 1/2 interest (Crystal Beach subdivision) 162 acres of their Destin property. In the same transaction Henderson and appointed as trustee for the Wilkinson's which still held a remaining 1/2 undivided interest. Many of these beachfront parcels have since been developed.

Source: Henderson Beach State Park on Wikipedia (authors). Text available under CC BY-SA 4.0; text may have been shortened. Retrieved Oct 18, 2026. Data sources