It may have taken modern vacationers a long time to discover Destin's beauty, but evidence of activity in the area indicates American Indians lived there as early as the seventh century A.D. The Spanish explored the area 900 years later, but Destin can trace its namesake to a Connecticut fisherman, Leonard Destin, who settled in Northwest Florida around 1845. Destin and others made use of the area's East Pass to the Gulf of Mexico. Modern history leaps forward to 1984 when Destin officially incorporated as a municipality. It is known as the "Luckiest Fishing Village."