John Clark, Governor of Georgia from 1819 to 1823, built and lived in a lodge-style home on this site in 1827. He and his family died of yellow fever in 1832 and were buried on the property. In 1923, the headstones and remains were returned to Georgia by the Daughters of the American Revolution. Union soldiers destroyed 32 homes, including Clark's, in 1863. The Clark heirs owned the property until the St. Andrews Bay Railroad Land and Mining Company acquired it as part of the "Land Boom" of the 1880's. Businessmen from Marianna purchased the property and then sold it to George M. West in 1887. He built this home but continued to work in Chicago until he permanently moved to St. Andrews in the early 1900's. West is credited as the "Father of Panama City." He published newspapers and started the Gulf Coast Development Company and several other ventures in St. Andrews and Panama City. West constructed the publishing building on Beck Avenue in 1920. He died in 1926, and his third wife, "Miss Lillian," built the log cabin just west of here in 1934. She sold the old West home and lived in the log cabin.