Book excerpt: Considered one of the world's most beautiful beaches for its sugar white sand and emerald blue-green waters, Panama City Beach has, until recently, remained one of Florida's undiscovered treasures. First documented by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later by the English, the region remained unsettled because of its inaccessibility and marauding renegade inhabitants. At a time when property was valued according to the crops it could grow, the beach was dismissed as a "no man's land" unsuitable for habitation. The early 1930s and the Hathaway Bridge, connecting Panama City Beach to the mainland, marked its "discovery" and the beginning of area tourism.