Grand Bahama Island -- History

ABOUT PINE RIDGE

The settlement of Pine Ridge evolved from a sawmill and camp that was established about five miles east of Hawksbill Creek after the Abaco Lumber Company moved to Grand Bahama Island in late 1944.

Old Pineridge Church
This church is one of the original buildings of the settlement.

A good source for Grand Bahama Island's History: "Grand Bahama" by Peter Barratt (Second Edition).

A Tourist Paradise

In 1955, the second most populated city of the Bahamas was little more than a pine forest. There were no resorts, no flashing casino lights or jet-skiers zipping through the surf. Grand Bahama was one of least developed of The Islands of The Bahamas, a place where a few hundred people made their living off the sea, perhaps daydreaming of the days of Prohibition, when the island's economy boomed from smuggling liquor to the United States. No one could have imagined then that the island would become the quintessential tropical Caribbean playground.

No one, perhaps, except a man named Wallace Groves. Groves was an American financier from the state of Virginia who had been on the island since the mid-1940's. He owned a lumber company at Pine Ridge, and was keen to the possibilities of the island as a tourist destination. Less than a hundred miles away was the United States and its thriving post-war economy. American vacationers were already streaming into Cuba by the tens of thousands, and beautiful Grand Bahama, thought Groves, could be an alternative to the overcrowded beaches and casinos of Havana. And so in 1955 he approached the Bahamian government with his idea to build a town that catered to both industry and tourists. Shortly after, a famous document known as the Hawksbill Creek Agreement was signed, and Freeport was born.

The Agreement granted 50,000 acres of land to Groves' company, The Grand Bahama Port Authority Ltd., with an option of adding an additional 50,000. To encourage investment, it also freed the Port Authority from paying taxes on income, capital gains, real estate and private property until 1985 - a provision that has since been extended to the year 2054. Soon after the Agreement was signed, Groves began to enact his vision. He convinced the shipping tycoon D.K. Ludwig to construct a harbour, and in 1962 he brought in Canadian Louis Chesler to develop the tourist center of Lucaya. Over 30 years later, the result is a community completely tailored to the getaway tourist, a premeditated paradise offering almost every kind of vacation activity imaginable.