🏛️ City Council votes 7-0 to seek historic designation for Chester Pruitt Park.
👮 Honors Chester Pruitt, the city’s first Black police officer, and his groundbreaking service.
🎉 Park’s designation would protect a beloved cultural hub from redevelopment.
FORT WALTON BEACH — What was prompted by the discussion over potential sites for a new city hall ended Tuesday night with the Fort Walton Beach City Council voting unanimously to seek a Florida historic designation for Chester Pruitt Park, preserving the legacy of the city’s first Black police officer.
The decision came after longtime resident CC Fearson delivered an impassioned public comment outlining Pruitt’s groundbreaking career and the park’s significance to the community.
According to Fearson, Pruitt was hired by the Fort Walton Beach Police Department in 1948 and became a full-time officer in 1951, when the city’s population was just 2,436, and he earned $40 per week.
For most of his 15-year career, he served during the era of Jim Crow segregation, when he could only arrest Black suspects and was allowed only to detain and question white suspects, but could never arrest them.
“Chester Pruitt broke barriers and gave an unforeseen hope to the Black community,” Fearson said. “Most of his 15 years of service were during the segregated times of Jim Crow.”
Despite these inequalities, Pruitt became known as “a gifted mediator and a champion of youth” who “was loved and respected by all in the Black community.”
A stroke forced Pruitt to retire in 1964, and he died four years later — a decade before Okaloosa County hired its first Black deputy sheriff, Clifford Florence, in 1974.
In recognition of his service, the city named a park and recreation center after him.
The park features a memorial Walk of Fame honoring other Black leaders and has long served as a ceremonial and cultural gathering place for events such as May Day, Super Youth Day, Easter egg hunts, and back-to-school supply giveaways.
In 1996, the Friends of Chester Pruitt nonprofit was formed to continue his community service mission, with his wife, Lula Pruitt, as a founding member.
In 2000, he was named one of 385 influential “Great Floridians” by the Florida Department of State and the Florida League of Cities, an honor bestowed on only four people in Okaloosa County.
The park’s historic designation push followed recent discussions about possible new city hall locations. The site had been considered once before, about two years ago, but was removed from the list. It resurfaced after new City Manager Jason Davis was tasked with identifying options.
In an interview on Wednesday with Mid Bay News, Councilwoman Debi Riley, who grew up in a neighborhood near the park, told Davis that Chester Pruitt Park “has always been… a place where all of our entertainment, our culture, and in the Black community I grew up in that area personally myself.”
At Riley’s urging, Davis met with community members at the Chester Pruitt Recreation Center. The meeting drew far more residents than expected, according to Riley, and included emotional testimony about the park’s cultural significance and calls for permanent protection.
Following Fearson’s remarks on Tuesday, Riley acted on behalf of those concerned citizens and made the motion to direct staff to pursue a historic designation through the Florida Department of State.
“Chester Pruitt Park is near and dear to the community, and I 100% support it,” Riley said. “It’s been a legacy amongst many generations and many of our families that grew up here and resided in the… community.”
Councilmember David Schmidt, who seconded the motion, thanked Riley and Davis “for taking time to go over and beyond and serve and call the meeting in the afternoon and try to get the people in the community and the message out there… it was a good energy.”
Councilmember Payne Walker added, “I want to say thank you for sharing that. Never knew so much about it. I’m a lover of history, and to know that such a man was in the community… what an honor it is to him to be spoken about all these years later.”
The motion passed 7-0, with Mayor Nic Allegretto noting, “If I could vote, we would have had an eight-nothing.”
After the vote, Riley told Mid Bay News that the decision was “so heartfelt… I almost felt like… this is history in the making.”
She described it as “overwhelming… with joy in my heart and knowing that [we] are keeping hope alive.”
If approved by the state, the designation would help protect Chester Pruitt Park from future redevelopment proposals and ensure the site continues to honor a man Riley called “near and dear” to her and the community she serves.
Pro Communi Bono
St. Francis De Sales, Ora Pro Nobis!
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