Most of what carries the Inlet Beach name today is recent: new streets, new homes and the shops along US-98. A century ago the name belonged to a hotel, and that hotel had burned down by 1931. The state park's own history says a 1920s brochure from McCaskill Investment Co. of DeFuniak Springs invited visitors to the Inlet Beach Hotel "located near where Camp Helen stands today," and sold them on the scenery, the climate, the fishing and the beach.
Camp Helen sits just west of the Phillips Inlet bridge in Bay County, a short drive from Inlet Beach. The park runs two ranger programs a month, and in the off-season those programs are the clearest way to read it.
A Hotel That Burned Before the Lodge Went Up
After the hotel fire, the property passed through a series of people who each left something standing. By 1931 the hotel had burned to the ground. McCaskill had already formed a company with Robert Hicks, who wanted to develop the land as a retirement complex. Hicks died in 1932, which stopped that plan, and McCaskill sold its interest to his widow, Margaret.
The building now called the Lodge was finished in 1932. Margaret Hicks and her young daughter, also named Margaret, made it their permanent home and named the property Loch Lomond. During the Depression she rented part of the land out as a public vacation spot. She built the Rainbow Cottages, small units for two to four guests, to bring in income while the Lodge stayed a private family home. The family held holidays there, and the younger Margaret was married there in the early 1940s. In 1942 Mrs. Hicks put the property up for sale and moved to Arizona.
The property's first life as a rental getaway came from a widow's Depression budget, and several of her buildings are still standing.
How an Alabama Mill Company Gave the Place Its Current Name
The name on the park sign came from Alabama. In 1945 Avondale Mills of Alabama, a cotton mill and fabric maker founded by Braxton Bragg Comer in 1897, bought the Hicks property as a vacation camp for its employees. Comer named his mills and properties after women in his family. The first Camp Helen, named for his son Fletcher's wife, Helen, had been on Hog Island Sound, in what is now Tyndall Air Force Base. The U.S. government requisitioned that camp in 1941 ahead of World War II. When Avondale moved west to Phillips Inlet, the name came along.
| Year | What happened on the property |
|---|---|
| 1920s | McCaskill Investment Co. promotes the Inlet Beach Hotel |
| 1931 | Hotel has burned. McCaskill and Robert Hicks form a development company |
| 1932 | Lodge completed. Margaret Hicks names the property Loch Lomond |
| 1942 | Mrs. Hicks lists the property for sale |
| 1945 | Avondale Mills buys it as an employee vacation camp |
| 1946 | The "new" Camp Helen opens to Avondale employees |
| 1950s | Duplexes, a recreation hall and a Gulf fishing pier are added |
| 1987 | Avondale stops using it as a vacation facility |
| 1996 | State of Florida buys the property |
| 1997 | Opens to the public as a state park |
Avondale employees got a week of boating, fishing, sunbathing, shuffleboard, volleyball and basketball, three meals a day in the dining hall, and evenings of dancing, bingo and music in the recreation hall. In the off-season the camp hosted Avondale management, business affiliates and personal friends of the Comer family. For four decades, one of the quietest stretches of shoreline near Inlet Beach was a company resort with a dinner bell.
The Story Behind Phillips Inlet
The park's history also includes a story about how Phillips Inlet, the water between Camp Helen and Inlet Beach, got its name. The Florida State Parks history page tells it like this:
"According to local legend, there was a passing band of Native Americans in the early 1800s that attacked a stranded schooner under the leadership of a man named Phillips. This tale, handed down by the sole survivor of the attack, earned Phillips Inlet on Lake Powell its name."
The park presents it as legend. The archaeology goes back much further: the park identifies the Deptford culture, dating to 500 B.C., as the first people to live here, and later Indigenous groups left pottery middens on the property.
The inlet itself still changes from season to season. Lake Powell borders the park and drains to the Gulf through an outfall. When the outfall opens, salt water and fresh water mix and the lake turns brackish. That means the inlet you drive over on the way to Camp Helen can look different from one visit to the next.
Two Ranger Programs That Run on the Calendar
The rangers turn this history into something you can schedule. Both programs repeat monthly, so once you know the pattern you can plan around it.
| Guided History Tour | Ranger-Guided Nature Hike | |
|---|---|---|
| When | First Saturday of each month, 10 to 11 a.m. | First Thursday of each month, 10 to 11 a.m. |
| December date | Saturday, December 5, 2026 | Thursday, December 3, 2026 |
| Where | Meets at the Visitor Center | Oak Canopy and North trails |
| What it covers | The Hicks family's buildings and the Avondale Mills employee-retreat era | Local plants and wildlife and the wider Florida Panhandle ecosystem |
| Cost | Park admission | Park admission |
The history tour is the one that ties back to the neighborhood. It walks the grounds where the Hicks buildings and the Avondale additions stand, so the Lodge, the cottages and the camp-era structures fill in the timeline above. The nature hike takes about an hour, and the two trails it uses have paved, sandy and packed-earth stretches. The trails start at the day-use parking lot. With the hike on Thursday, December 3 and the tour on Saturday, December 5, you can cover the land and the buildings in a single week, then do the same again in January.
A Park Between Concessions
Effective May 13, 2026, Camp Helen no longer offers kayak rentals, according to the official Camp Helen park page. For now, if you want to paddle Lake Powell from the park, you bring your own kayak.
The Florida Park Service has since asked for business partners. Its call for business plans, SUP-BP #04-26, covers a concession that "may include, but are not limited to: Recreational Equipment Rental, Food and Beverage, Special Event Management and Merchandise Resale," with a term of five to ten years. Bidders had to attend a mandatory on-site meeting on September 9, 2026, and proposals were due September 30, 2026. The scope is broad. Whoever operates at Camp Helen next could add food, events and merchandise as well as rentals, which would make it a busier place than the rangers-and-honor-box park it is this winter.
The Friends of Camp Helen keep things going in the meantime. The volunteer group describes its work as volunteer projects, events and fundraising, and lists concerts, Movies & More, a fall festival, a pumpkin patch, coastal cleanups and park improvements among its efforts. Its pumpkin patch ran on the park calendar from October 1 through October 31, 2026.
Before You Cross the Bridge
A few practical details from the park's official pages:
- Address: 23937 Panama City Beach Parkway, Panama City Beach, Florida 32413, just west of the Phillips Inlet bridge.
- Hours: 8 a.m. to sunset, 365 days a year. Day-use only.
- Fees: $4 per vehicle, or $2 per pedestrian or cyclist, paid at the honor box.
- Pets: The Florida State Parks pet policy requires pets to be leashed and keeps them off beaches and boardwalks.
- Fishing: The park's experiences page says fishing follows the applicable size, number, method and season regulations, and a Florida fishing license may be required.
If you're on foot or on a bike from the Inlet Beach side, the $2 fee makes the history tour about the cheapest outing on this end of the coast. You can stand near where the Inlet Beach Hotel was advertised a century ago.
For The Lauderdale Group, the history of the east end is part of knowing it well, from the Lodge Margaret Hicks finished in 1932 to the new streets going in along US-98. If Camp Helen's story has you curious about how the rest of Inlet Beach came together, the team at The Lauderdale Group would be glad to talk it through. Request a personalized 30A consultation.
