Inlet Beach, Florida is located at the eastern edge of Beaches of South Walton.  It gets its name from Phillips Inlet, which separates Walton and Bay Counties. Established in the 1920s by the McCaskill Investment Company of DeFuniak Springs, Inlet Beach quickly became an area where young veterans from World War II returned and applied for land offered through a latter-day version of the Homestead Act.  In 1947, the Birmingham News ran an article about the Bureau of Land Development giving veterans first choice in a lottery. 
So many veterans built in the area, it was referred to as “Soldiers Beach.”