Step back in time to the turn of the century with a visit to the House of Refuge museum at Gilbert’s Bar on Hutchinson Island.

Built in 1876 to help stranded sailors,  the House of Refuge is the last remaining of the original ten shipwreck life-saving stations on Florida’s Atlantic Coast.

According to the 1879 “Annual Report of Life Saving Service”  these houses of refuge along the east coast of Florida contemplate no other life-saving operations then affording succor to Shipwrecked persons who may be cast ashore and who in the absence of such means of relief would be liable to perish from hunger and thirst in that desolate region.”

“Crews of surfmen are not needed here, but the keepers and member of their families are required to go along the beach in both directions in search of Castaways immediately after a storm”.

It offered shelter to the survivors of the “Georges Valentine” shipwreck in 1904 which had seven survivors.   During the same storm the Spanish ship “Cosme Calzado”  wrecked three miles north and 15 of the 16 men survived and all the survivors joined together at The Refuge.

In 1915 the House of Refuge became the US Coast Guard Station number 207 and later served as a lookout for enemy submarines during World War II.

Every artifact here in the museum has a story to tell from life-saving equipment, to personal belongings.

Only a hundred yards from shore you can snorkel and dive the “Georges Valentine” wreck.

Open 10 to 5 daily,  closed for holidays.