Pepper Park, Fort Pierce: Beach, Reefs and the Urca de Lima Preserve

Pepper Park is a 52 acre St. Lucie County beach park at 3302 North SR A1A in Fort Pierce, set along the Atlantic Ocean.

St. Lucie County describes the park as named for the late U.S. Senator from Florida, Claude Pepper, and sets it along the Atlantic shore with a mailing address of Fort Pierce 34949 (St. Lucie County Pepper Park page). The county lists two contact lines on that page: general information at 772-462-1522 and pavilion rentals at 772-462-2110. Last verified: October 22, 2026, by re-reading the county Pepper Park and beaches pages, the Wildcat Cove Preserve page and three federal and state records of the Urca de Lima wreck.

The beach side of Pepper Park is the part most visitors mean. The county park page covers that beach side, while the Wildcat Cove Preserve page says the preserve is also accessible through Pepper Park Riverside (St. Lucie County Wildcat Cove Preserve page). The Hutchinson Island beaches guide compares it with Waveland, Walton Rocks, Frederick Douglass and the other county beaches, while the Fort Pierce Inlet State Park guide covers the state park and Jack Island.

St. Lucie County stations lifeguards at Pepper Park and Waveland, and its own pages give two different opening rules for Pepper Park.

The Pepper Park page lists the hours as open 24 hours, 7 days a week (St. Lucie County Pepper Park page). The county beaches index states instead that all county parks, beaches and preserves are open during daylight hours, from dawn until dusk (St. Lucie County beaches page).

For swimming, the same beaches index says lifeguards are stationed at Pepper Park and Waveland, gives a St. Lucie County Beach Conditions Hotline at 772-462-1421, and lists the Pepper Park lifeguard tower phone as 772-332-8298 (St. Lucie County beaches page). The beaches page also links a beach report from the St. Lucie County Marine Safety Division, for current conditions.

Pepper Park lists courts, a softball field, picnic shelters and grills alongside its beach access, so it works as a full day park as well as a swimming beach.

The amenity list on the St. Lucie County Pepper Park page reads: baseball and softball, basketball, beach access, fishing, picnic tables, restroom, volleyball, tennis, swimming, a swing set, grills, a lifeguard and pavilions available for rent (St. Lucie County Pepper Park page). The photo captions on the same page name a West Pavilion, an East Pavilion and Restrooms, the tennis and basketball courts, a volleyball area and the softball field. Pavilion bookings for Pepper Park go through the rental line at 772-462-2110 (St. Lucie County Pepper Park page).

The table below gathers the Pepper Park basics from county pages in one place.

Shallow nearshore reefs sit less than 100 yards off the Pepper Park beach, and the Urca de Lima shipwreck preserve lies about 1,000 yards north of the park and some 200 yards offshore.

St. Lucie County calls Pepper Park a popular location for snorkelers and divers because of those nearshore reefs, and names the park as the site of the state's first underwater archaeological preserve, the Urca de Lima, which the county places in about 20 feet of water (St. Lucie County Pepper Park page). Federal and state records give a shallower figure. The National Park Service article puts the wreck 200 yards offshore in 10 to 15 feet of water about 1,000 yards north of Pepper Beach Park near Fort Pierce (National Park Service Urca de Lima article), and the National Register nomination repeats 10 to 15 feet and describes the location as 200 yards off Jack Island Park and 1,000 yards north of Pepper Beach Park (Urca de Lima National Register nomination).

Florida's Museums in the Sea page gives the shore route: follow A1A north from the Ft. Pierce Inlet to Pepper Park, then walk northward along the beach approximately 1,000 yards from the park boundary; the wreck lies on the first offshore reef about 200 yards from shore, at 27 degrees 30.317 minutes north, 80 degrees 17.950 minutes west (Museums in the Sea Urca de Lima page). The National Register nomination's setting section places the site on the second offshore reef, while the directions attached to the same nomination say the first offshore reef. The Park Service asks boaters to use the mooring buoy placed at the site instead of anchoring, to protect the wreck from anchor damage, and says a laminated underwater guide is available from local dive shops (National Park Service).

The Urca de Lima was a Spanish storeship in the 1715 fleet that wrecked near present day Fort Pierce in a hurricane, and in 1987 it became Florida's first Underwater Archaeological Preserve.

The Museums in the Sea history reads like this: in the summer of 1715, two Spanish convoys met in Havana and sailed for Spain, and within days the 11 vessels were struck by a hurricane (Museums in the Sea Urca de Lima page). The ship, originally called Santisima Trinidad, was a 305 ton Dutch built storeship, or urca, owned by Don Miguel de Lima. It grounded near present day Ft. Pierce and fed survivors from the other wrecks until supplies arrived from Havana thirty-one days later. It was the first of the fleet wrecks salvaged by Spanish crews from Havana, who then burned it to the waterline to hide its position from English freebooters.

The modern story starts with the city. According to the same state page, Urca de Lima stayed covered by sand until 1928, when the City of Fort Pierce funded a search for the fleet and 16 cannons and 4 anchors were raised and displayed around the city; the first salvage permit followed in 1932 (Museums in the Sea Urca de Lima page). In 1985 state archaeologists mapped the surviving hull at the request of the St. Lucie County Historical Commission, which wanted an underwater park, and in 2001 the wreck was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Park Service adds that the state stopped issuing salvage permits on the Urca de Lima in the 1980s, that five cement replica cannons and an anchor were set around the wreck, and that all that remains off Fort Pierce is a 100 foot by 50 foot ballast mound covering the hull timbers (National Park Service Urca de Lima article).

The National Register nomination records the 1987 dedication with a bronze plaque, sets the protected boundary as a circle of 300 yards radius around the site, and lists one marker buoy and three mooring buoys among its features off Jack Island Park (Urca de Lima National Register nomination). It finds the Urca de Lima significant at the national level under Criterion A, C and D, and calls it the only known surviving example of the flat bottomed storeship type called an urca. The Park Service says the preserve is open to the public year round, free of charge (National Park Service).

Yes: part of the Wildcat Cove Preserve trail connects to Pepper Park, and the preserve can also be entered through Pepper Park Riverside.

St. Lucie County lists Wildcat Cove Preserve at 3399 Florida A1A, Fort Pierce 34949, with 114 acres of mangrove swamp and hammock on the Indian River Lagoon overseen by the Mosquito Control District (St. Lucie County Wildcat Cove Preserve page). Its self guided interpretive trail runs a little over 2 miles roundtrip, and the county says the part that connects to Pepper Park extends the walk by another half mile one way. Listed amenities include fishing piers, a crabbing platform, picnic pavilions, wildlife observation areas, educational signage and bike stands, and the Environmental Resources contact is (772) 462-1692.

The St. Lucie County Mosquito Control District names Wildcat Cove among the lands its acquisition and mitigation program helped bring into public ownership, and says it manages 4,000 acres of coastal mangrove swamps and salt marshes by keeping impoundments flooded during the summer breeding season, a method called rotational impoundment management (Mosquito Control District Impoundment Division page). The district adds that these areas offer hiking, biking, fishing, crabbing and wildlife observation, which is the lagoon counterpart to the Pepper Park beach.

St. Lucie County beaches, Pepper Park included, follow sea turtle rules from March 1 through Nov. 15, and bonfires are banned on every county beach all year.

The St. Lucie County sea turtle page says the county's 21 miles of beaches are nesting grounds for green, leatherback and loggerhead turtles, and that the first recorded nest last season was laid in late February (St. Lucie County sea turtle information page). During nesting season the county asks that exterior lights be modified or turned off so they are not directly visible from the beach between sunset and sunrise, window treatments are required on windows within the line of sight of the beach, regular flashlights are discouraged in favor of red or infrared light, beach furniture should not stay out overnight, and pits, holes and sandcastles can turn into pitfalls that trap hatchlings.

Dog owners should note one more line on the same county page: Walton Rocks Beach is the only dog approved beach in St. Lucie County, which leaves Pepper Park off the list for dogs (St. Lucie County sea turtle information page). The same page asks that sick, injured, entangled or dead sea turtles be reported to the FWC Wildlife Alert Hotline at 888-404-FWCC (3922).