Shalimar, FL

Shalimar is an Okaloosa County town of 737 residents in the 2020 census, set along Choctawhatchee Bay near Fort Walton Beach and Eglin Air Force Base. The town took shape in the 1940s, when Clifford Meigs and his associates built housing and community facilities for the growing Eglin area. You can still see the Meigs family's imprint in street names, Meigs Middle School, and the land that became part of the local school and civic landscape. Meigs Park is the place that makes Shalimar's bayfront geography easy to picture. It has a small-boat ramp, sandy beach, picnic tables, and fishing access on the bay.

ATTRTails Wx / CC BY-SA 4.0

The town's story also reaches into old Port Dixie plans, bay shipping, Eglin's wartime expansion, and Fort Walton Beach's nearby commercial center. The Coast Guard navigation marker once offshore of Meigs Beach is gone, but it belongs to the same water-and-transportation story that shaped the area. The local scoop is that Shalimar may be small on the map, yet its identity is tied to the bay, Eglin, the Meigs family, and the wider Fort Walton Beach area.