First documented by Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later by the English, the region remained unsettled because of its inaccessibility and marauding renegade inhabitants. At a time when property was valued according to the crops it could grow, the beach was dismissed as a ""no man's land"" unsuitable for habitation. The early 1930s and the Hathaway Bridge, connecting Panama City Beach to the mainland, marked its ""discovery"" and the beginning of area tourism.