Southern Agenda

Split Personality

An illustration of humanized clocks holding hands

Photo: Tim Bower


Four clocks hang in the Gulf County Welcome Center in Port St. Joe, labeled “Eastern Time,” “Central Time,” “Vacation Time” (which has no hands), and “Gulf County Time,” the numbers of which lie in a jumbled mess at the bottom of the clock-face. Of the four, the last timepiece is always the most accurate. As a St. Petersburg Times columnist once wrote of the county, “Time hereabouts is wonderfully theoretical, running on double clockwork.” The reason for the chronic confusion: As one of a handful of time zone–straddling counties nationwide, Gulf County is a house divided, temporally speaking: Thanks to the meddling of some long-ago railroad tycoons, Central time dictates much of the county’s northern half, while Eastern time prevails along the Gulf coast. Predictably, this makes for quirks—head seven-odd miles east from the aforementioned welcome center, for example, and you’ll be an hour younger on Chicago time—and at least one designated selfie spot: an oversize half-blue, half-green Adirondack chair bisected by time zones near Mexico Beach. Everything gets even more confusing when daylight savings rolls around on March 9, although most visitors won’t even notice. After all, they’re on Vacation Time.

visitgulf.com