Caladesi Island State Park preserves a notably natural stretch of the Pinellas County coast, with beaches, dunes, mangroves, maritime hammock, pine flatwoods, coastal strand, and mudflats that support shorebirds, waders, ospreys, gopher tortoises, rattlesnakes, and nesting sea turtles. Once used by the Tocobaga and later known as Hog Island, the island was renamed Caladesi in 1928 and reshaped by hurricanes in 1921 and 1985. Henry Scharrer established permanent occupancy there in 1890, and his daughter Myrtle Scharrer Betz later recorded island life in her memoir. After the family homestead passed from their hands, Florida acquired the property in 1967 and created the park, now valued for both recreation and conservation.