A. According to the St. Lucie County web site, historians believe that the name "St. Lucie" was first given to this area by the Spanish. The name was given after the Spanish began construction of a fort in 1567 on December 13 - the feast day of the Roman Catholic Saint Lucia.
The "Santa Lucia" colony was established somewhere between Vero Beach and Stuart around 1567, as old Spanish maps identify this area as Santa Lucia, which included roughly what is now known as Vero Beach to Stuart. The Spanish held Florida from 1783 to 1819. Seminoles (Creek Indians from Alabama and Georgia) and runaway slaves began to settle on the Treasure Coast. The Anglo-Saxon version, "St. Lucie," would not be officially used to identify the area until the 1900s.
So why is it called "Port" when there is no real port here? The first major community developed by General Development Corp, developers of Port St. Lucie, was Port Charlotte on the Gulf Coast in the 1950s. It became GDC's marketing plan to include "Port" in the names of all the large developments they had planned for Florida. Other developments of the company that filed for bankruptcy in 1991 included Port Malabar (now part of Palm Bay), Port St. John, Port LaBelle and North Port.
For a full explanation of this and a great deal more Port St. Lucie information, take a look at the history book the Port St. Lucie Historical Society published for the city's 50th anniversary, Port St. Lucie at 50: A City for All People.
-- stlucieco.gov & PSL Historical Society volunteer