ABOUT THE TREASURE COAST

The Treasure Coast is a region in the U.S. state of Florida, generally considered to include (from north to south) Indian River, St. Lucie, and Martin counties. The area stretches from Hobe Sound in the south to north of Sebastian in the north and includes the cities of Stuart, Jensen Beach, Hobe Sound, Port Salermo, Port St. Lucie, Fort Pierce, Sebastian and Vero Beach. · The Port St. Lucie, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, consisting of Martin and St. Lucie counties. Port St. Lucie is designated as the principal city. The two-county metropolitan statistical area was first defined in 1983 as the Fort Pierce Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 1993, the MSA was renamed the Fort Pierce-Port St. Lucie Metropolitan Statistical Area. In 2006, Fort Pierce was dropped as a principal city and the name was changed to its present form.

· The Sebastian – Vero Beach, Florida Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is coextensive with Indian River County. Sebastian and Vero Beach, are designated as the principal cities.

The name “Treasure Coast” is derived from a number of ships of Spanish galleons (especially those of the 1715 Spanish treasure fleet) that wrecked off the coast during the 17th and 18th centuries. Artifacts from these ships have been recovered in the past fifty years, by both amateur and professional treasure-hunters. As recently as August 2010, a man diving in shallow water near Jupiter found a gold coin that was minted in Mexico in the mid 1650s