Exploring St. Croix: A Treasure Trove

Spacious and site-packed, friendly St. Croix engages guests with mustard-yellow forts, stone windmills, world-class diving and a whole lot of festivals.

By Chris Goodier

The largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands is a treasure-trove of historic attractions and a playground for lovers of the great outdoors. You can paddle a kayak where Christopher Columbus anchored, dive a shipwreck with endangered sea turtles, and shoot 18 holes of golf beside 18th-century ruins. On plantation grounds, pick up blue porcelain shards dating back to Danish times, nibble hot fried johnnycakes and sip rum made the original way from molasses and rainwater.

Steve Simonsen

Twenty-eight miles long and seven miles across at its widest, St. Croix is shaped like a shoe with its toe pointing east. Christopher Columbus sailed into the top of the shoe at the Salt River on his second voyage to the New World, in 1493, and named the island Santa Cruz. His landing party beat a retreat after encountering hostile natives firing arrows.

Undaunted, European settlers followed, attracted by the fertile land; and after buying the island from France in 1733, Denmark drew up plans for more than 300 sugar and cotton estates.

Planters made great fortunes turning cane stalks into sugar, molasses and rum, and international trade boomed in the 18th century. America's first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, grew up here and learned to handle foreign currency as a teenage orphan working for a Christiansted merchant.

After Danish Governor Peter Von Scholten proclaimed that all slaves were free on July 3,1848, plantations began to decline and the island waned. The United States bought the Danish West Indies in 1917, and today's Crucians, as islanders are called, are proud to be American citizens.

Plan on at least a half-day to shop and see sights in Christiansted, then rent a car or arrange a tour to explore the rest of the 84-square-mile island. Start at the easternmost edge of the United States, Point Udall. A Millennium Monument here commemorates America's first sunrise on January 1, 2000.

Mid-island, you can't miss the Hovensa Oil Refinery, one of the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Nearby is Sunny Isle, an all-American shopping center complete with fast-food chains. Head west to visit quiet Frederiksted, the deepwater seaport for visiting cruise ships. Drive through a lush forest and ramble north to Cane Bay for a sunset drink at a quintessential beach bar. On your return, pass the Salt River Bay National Historical Park and Ecological Preserve, where Columbus started it all.

The U.S. Virgin Islands Department of Tourism has three locations: a booth in the airport, and visitors bureaus in Christiansted on Company Street (340-773-0495) and in Frederiksted at the Oscar Henry Customs House (340-772-0357).

Once a bustling port and commercial center, the well-designed town of Christiansted looks much the way it did in the 18th century, with graceful arcades that shelter shoppers from sun or showers. Notice the yellow brick used in buildings: It came from Denmark as ballast for sugar and rum sailing ships.

Steve Simonsen

Shops and restaurants lead to a boardwalk on the north - a great place to have a cold drink and watch jaunty seaplanes take off. The small island you see is Protestant Cay, once a fort and harbor pilot's home, now a hotel and water-sports center.

>> Fort Christiansvaern: For protection against pirates who slipped through treacherous reefs offshore, the Danes completed this fort in 1749. On a self-guided tour, you'll see soldiers' living quarters, dungeons and a row of cannons guarding the harbor. On the waterfront just east of downtown Christiansted

>> The Steeple Building: This landmark, built in 1743 and easily spotted by boats in the harbor, was St. Croix's first Lutheran Church. Two Sunday services were conducted there every week: the first in Danish and a second one in Dutch-Creole for nonwhites. At the corner of Company and Hospital Streets across from Fort Christiansvaern

>> The Scale House: Dominating this 1856 building with arched doors is a massive scale, once used to weigh bales of cotton and hogsheads of sugar for export. At the foot of King Street near the waterfront

Though not open for touring, other Danish-built structures found in the Christiansted Historic Site were built to service the shipping trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. They include the following:

>> The Customs House: A two-story building easily identified by its "welcome arms staircase," the Customs House was completed in 1830 for use by government officials who collected duty on imports and exports. Near the fort in the center of the historic site

>> The Danish West India & Guinea Company Warehouse: Private investors built this warehouse in 1749 and auctioned slaves in the courtyard. In later years, the building served as a military depot, a telegraph company station and, most recently, a post office. The National Park Service plans to open a slavery museum here within the next five years. At the foot of Company and King Streets facing Hospital Street and the fort

>> Government House The Royal Danish: government purchased and joined together two private homes in 1771 to create an administrative base for the Danish West Indies. The buildings were restored extensively in the 1990s and now house offices and the St. Croix residence of the Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands. Two blocks up from the wharf on King Street near Queen Cross Street >>

Frederiksted and the West End St. Croix's second town is also a seaport, with a tidy waterfront park and white sandy beaches facing west. Some buildings have fanciful Victorian gingerbread trim.

>> Fort Frederik: The Danes finished their west end fortification in 1760 and enlarged it a century later as a point of defense from outside invaders, and also to foil planters smuggling sugar and rum to neighboring islands. North of the cruise ship pier. 340-772-2021

>> Caribbean Museum Center: Located in an 18th-century Danish building on the waterfront, the new center features galleries with rotating exhibits of work by Caribbean photographers and artists. 10 Strand St. 340-772-2622, www.cmcarts.org

>> Lawaetz Family Museum: This gem is filled with antique Danish Christmas plates and hand-carved mahogany family furnishings representing a farm family's life in the 19th and 20th centuries. Transfer Day ceremonies are held to mark America's purchase of the USVI from Denmark for $25 million in gold on March 31, 1917. Estate Little La Grange, two miles north of Frederiksted on Route 76 at Mahogany Rd. 340-772-0598, www.stcroixlandmarks.com

>> Whim Plantation Museum: Tour the 18th-century greathouse and outbuildings, including a cookhouse, a bathhouse and a restored sugar mill. On Route 70 (at Centerline Road), two miles east of Frederiksted. 340-772-0598, www.stcroixlandmarks.com

>> Cruzan Rum Distillery: This rum is distilled at a working rum factory on former plantation grounds. Guides explain how molasses and rainwater end up in fruity drinks. Route 64, east of Frederiksted and west of the airport. 340-692-2280, www.cruzanrum.com

>> St. George Village Botanical Garden: On 16 acres, garden staffers nurture orchids, cactuses and ferns set among plantation ruins. Learn about West Indian medicinal herbs, dyes, fruits, vegetables and spices. 127 Estate St. George, four miles east of Frederiksted off Centerline Road. 340-692-2874, www.sgvbg.org