Bulow Plantation Ruins Historic State Park preserves the coquina ruins of a major antebellum plantation and sugar mill near Flagler Beach. Begun in 1821 when Major Charles Wilhelm Bulow acquired 4,675 acres along what became Bulow Creek, the estate grew into the largest plantation in East Florida. Using the forced labor of enslaved Africans and African Americans, about 2,200 acres were cleared for indigo, cotton, rice, and sugarcane. After Bulow's death in 1823, his son John Joachim Bulow continued operations, and John James Audubon stayed there in 1831 to 1832. The plantation was destroyed during the Seminole War in 1836, leaving the ruins preserved today.