28     |    DestinMagazine.com

W

e’ve all heard them—those legendary, all-too-

incredible-to-be-real stories of catching monstrous 

fish or encountering harrowing seas on a fishing 

expedition. But sometimes those stories are true and 

sometimes they become the very fabric of a community, as is the 

case with The Luckiest Little Fishing Village that has come to be 

called Destin.

Stories themselves can change over the course of time as they are 

told and retold generation after generation; but the facts remain, 

documented in remnants of the past—those physical pieces of 

evidence that become weathered and worn with age, that bear the 

patina of history and whisper their tales to those who are willing 

to listen. These are the things that become treasures, things to be 

saved and preserved so that their stories can live on to teach us 

lessons and remind us all of the people who have shaped the world 

to become what it is now.  

Preservation is the idea behind any museum and for the Destin 

History and Fishing Museum its driving mission is to ensure 

that the history of Destin weathers the seas of time. For such a 

small town, its life has certainly been a full one; one full of color 

story by

 

Liesel Schmidt

 

 |  

photos by

 

Steve Barber

Fish Stories

“I once caught a fi sh THIS big…”

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9/27/16   1:16 PM