Crestview: Hub City of the Panhandle

Crestview sits on a high ridge in the Florida Panhandle, between the Yellow River to the west and the Shoal River to the east. The Pensacola and Atlantic Railroad put a station here in eighteen eighty-three at precisely this high point along its route from Pensacola to Chattahoochee, and a small timber and turpentine settlement gathered around it.

The town incorporated in nineteen sixteen and later became the seat of Okaloosa County, which had been created in nineteen fifteen from parts of Walton and Santa Rosa counties. World War Two changed Crestview for good: Eglin Air Force Base, just to the south, expanded enormously, and Crestview grew up to support it.