Click on the image above to read the New York Times Article
The sinking of the Faithful Steward, of course, was an insignificant event in the formation
and reformation of the beach.
No one remembers when the first coins were found on the beach, but it was probably in
the late 1800s when someone picked up from the surf line a corroded copper coin and
rubbed it to reveal the image of King George III.
Those first coins were merely considered "old" and were attributed to no particular
wreck, as locations of the sinking had been long forgotten. More and more of the coins
appeared and by 1920, the beach just north of the Indian River Inlet was already
known as "Coin Beach". During the 1930s, the United States Coast Guard personnel
that manned the old Life Saving Station about 1.5 miles north of the Indian River Inlet
found a way to amuse themselves at their desolate post.
After each severe storm, they searched the beach for coins, and after several years they
had literally filled buckets with many thousands of the old half pennies. The number is by
no means exaggerated, for by this time, organized groups routinely visited the beach to
state their own treasure hunts. One such treasure hunt was reported in a news article of
1937.
