Jensen Beach

This station is located on top of the Life Guard Hut at Jensen Beach, just north of the Holiday Inn near Stuart, Florida in Martin County (central Florida on the east coast). Jensen Beach is a census-designated place (CDP) in Martin County, Florida, United States. The population was 11,100 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area. According to the United States Census Bureau, the CDP has a total area of 8.1 square miles (21.1 km²), of which, 7.2 square miles (18.8 km²) is land and 0.9 square miles (2.3 km²; 10.82%) is water. Ocean Breeze Park is an incorporated town located within unincorporated Jensen Beach. Waveland was the original name for the area from Crossroads Hill (south of N.E. Center Street) south to the tip of Sewall's Point and west to Warner Creek. "Jensen" originally meant the area immediately adjacent to today's Downtown Jensen Beach. Jensen Beach is a part of the Treasure Coast which derives its name from the ships that wrecked during the 17th century because of coral reefs in the shallow waters. Artifacts and treasures from these ships of Spanish origin can still be discovered today. The Skyline Drive area is among the highest points in south Florida. The main public beach in Jensen Beach is on Hutchinson Island, called Jensen Sea Turtle Beach. It's a wide sandy beach on the Atlantic Ocean. Martin County life guards are in attendance. The beach is used for sun bathing, surfing, and swimming. Sections of the beach where sea turtles lay their eggs are blocked off. Jensen Beach is known in the marine biology community for being a location for sea turtles to nest. Designated sections of the Jensen Sea Turtle Beach are barricaded off in order to protect the nests of the sea turtles. The three species found on this beach are the loggerhead, leatherback turtle and green sea turtle. Loggerhead nests are the most common type found on this and adjacent beaches. Locations of the sea turtle’s nests are marked with the approximate date in which the eggs were laid and the expected date in which the eggs will hatch. These notifications are meant to discourage tourists and residents from visiting the beach in the evening hours during these time periods. Efforts are made to protect both species of sea turtles since nests have been declining in recent years due to the severe erosion of the beach.[citation The history of Jensen Beach in the 19th century revolves around pineapple farming. John Laurence Jensen, an immigrant from Denmark, arrived in 1881, and set up his pineapple plantation, which became the town of Jensen. By 1894, the Florida East Coast Railway reached Jensen Beach, and freight shipments were loaded directly onto the freight cars. By 1895, Jensen was called the “Pineapple Capital of the World,” shipping over one million boxes of pineapples each year during the June and July season.[3] To help deal with the increased Pineapple production, a Pineapple Factory was built. A hard freeze in 1895 devastated most of the small pineapple plantations. Also, two fires, 1908 and 1910, destroyed most of Jensen Beach and its remaining Pineapple farms. The industry finally collapsed in 1920 due to a wide variety of financial and agriculture problems. Growers decided to turn their efforts in another direction: raising citrus. The pineapple has become a symbol of Jensen Beach. The fruit legacy is celebrated annually during the Jensen Beach Pineapple Festival. In 2004 Jensen Beach was hit by two hurricanes. On September 5, 2004, Hurricane Frances made landfall at Hutchinson Island with winds of 105 mph. On September 25, 2004, Hurricane Jeanne made landfall on Hutchinson Island with winds of 120 mph.