Historic Saint Augustine

Saint Augustine, Florida is a modern-day mixture of historical buildings and tourist focused attractions for which Florida is so well known. The city is located on the east coast or the north-central area of the peninsula and is approximately nine-and-a-half square miles.

Christmas in St. Augustine.

Boasting a Christmas illumination display that would make Clark Griswold proud, Saint Augustine’s Night of Light’s is one of the nation’s brightest with almost two-million lights. 

The restaurants styles range from exclusive gastronome to old fashioned empanada meat pies. Spooky nighttime tours of the haunted downtown and the striped, Saint Augustine Lighthouse are but a few fun things to fill your evenings.

The area is steeped in history from the early sixteenth-century, to the civil war, to WWII, and into the twenty-first century.

Here’s a bit of early history about Saint Augustine and the surrounding area.

In 1513, Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon lived in Puerto

Explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon

Rico. He left the islands to explore the northern continent on March 4 and arrived on the Florida coast on April 2. Along with three commissioned ships, the Santiago, the San Cristobal, and the Santa Maria de la Consolacion, the adventurer traveled the coastline of Florida from Mosquito Inlet to Charlotte Harbor. De Leon named his discovery, La Florida, in honor of the Easter Season and Pascua Florida, the Spanish festival of flowers. Legend says de Leon was in search of—not gold—but a fountain of youth the native population said existed in the area. Today, you can visit the mythological fountain in the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park near Saint Augustine.

1565, King Phillip II of Spain sent Pedro Menendez de Aviles to Florida after he learned the French had established a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida—an intrusion onto Spanish lands in the New World.

Pedro Menendez de Aviles arrived on the Florida coast with 10 ships and 1500 men around September 1565. His orders were to establish an outpost for Spain along the coast and eliminate the French settlements on Spanish land.

Coffin of Pedro Menendez de Aviles

He settled St. Augustine then immediately attacked Fort Caroline, a French settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. During the conquest, Menendez ordered some of the Frenchmen to be hung from trees. He carved a message into a tree trunk that read "Hanged Not as Frenchmen but as Lutherans."
Menendez continued his quest until he fulfilled his promise to the king to eliminate the French and establish St. Augustine for Spain.

Sir Francis Drake, English sea captain, privateer, naval officer, slave trader and explorer, attacked St. Augustine in 1586. His forces destroyed the wooden fort, San Juan de Pinillo.

An Italian artist who traveled with Drake, Boazio, rendered a map of the city during the siege. Boazio’s drawing is the earliest portrayal of the city of Saint Augustine and provides historians with important landmarks and information about the design of the city.

Carolina Charter of 1665 enlarged the original grant for the Carolina Colony. The new boundary extended into Spanish territory and was defined as 29° north latitude. The extension of the Charter encompassed Saint Augustine. The city had been controlled by the Spanish for over 100 years. A border dispute between the English and Spanish erupted in the Americas. The dispute wasn’t fully settled until the Georgia colony was formed.

The history of Saint Augustine is sometimes overlooked in the modern teaching of American history. We tend to focus on the Plymouth Colony and the Virginia Colony, forgetting the Spanish imprint on the New World. Though sometimes violent, the contribution of men like King Phillip II, Juan Ponce de Leon and Pedro Menendez de Aviles are huge and worthy of a place in America’s textbooks. Have you visited Florida or the Saint Augustine area? What did you think? Please, leave a comment below and let us know about your experiences in the historic city.



 

Multi award-winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan.

Michele is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Ponce de Leon Hotel

Saint Augustine Florida is the oldest, continuously occupied city in the United States. The city is brimming with history and culture, and one of the historic buildings you can’t miss while in the city is Flagler College.

The college is a Spanish style structure located at 74 King Street in Saint Augustine, Florida. The college opened in 1968 and has since continued to serve as an exceptional educational institute. 

 

Ponce de Leon Hotel

The pre-college history is a fun and glamorous gilded age tale. It started when Henry Flagler visited Saint Augustine in the late 1800’s, he fell in love with the area. As a business man, he was impressed with innovation of the poured concrete home of Franklin Smith. Flagler tried to buy the home from Smith for a winter home for his wife, but when Smith refused to sell, Flagler instead decided to build the Ponce. Or officially named, Ponce de León Hotel, after the famed explorer who reportedly came to the area in search of the fountain of youth.

The Ponce opened January 10th, 1888 and, like Smith’s home, was constructed of poured concrete. Thomas Edison was a close friend of Flagler, and he wired the buildings for electricity from the get-go—one of the firsts in the nation. A boiler system in the basement of the hotel generated the energy needed to light-up the hotel. Interestingly, Flagler had to hire extra staff to turn on and off the electricity for the hotel’s patrons. The guests were too afraid to touch the new technology to do it themselves.

Quickly the luxury hotel attracted a variety of wealthy northerners. Rooms sold 

Dining room

for five dollars, and up, per night. The Ponce was so popular, Flagler bought two more hotels in the area to handle the overflow. The dining room boasts beautiful stained-glass windows created by the famed Tiffany & Co, and massive murals painted by George W. Maynard, whose art also graces the walls in the Library of Congress. The furniture was designed by Pottier & Stymus of New York. Only the best, newest, and most opulent decorations were used catering to the upper-class clientele and giving those folks a little lower on the social class ladder an opportunity to live like the rich and famous.
 

 The Ponce DeLeon Hotel was a hot spot for politicians, wealthy businessmen and their families and other rich and famous of the world. Among the long list of noted visitors was Mark Twain, Presidents Grover Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt and baseball great, Babe Ruth. Frank Thompson, who was headwaiter in the 1880’s and 1890’s was a forerunner of the civil rights movement and organized a professional black baseball team. That sounds like an amazing story in its self.

An artist’s community was established at the hotel. Flagler built an artist’s studio building at the rear of the resort. Noted artists of the time were known to frequent the community. A few names on the guest list were, Felix de Crano, Martin Johnson Heade, Authur Vidal Diehl and Harry L. Hoffman.

By the 1910’s and 1920’s the hotel saw the number of visitors decline. Due in part to a growing resort area in Miami where the weather was warmer. Though the Ponce was one of only three of Flagler’s hotels to service the Great Depression proving its popularity.
  

If you’re ever able to visit the Saint Augustine area, Flagler College runs historic tours where you can still experience the opulence of this great, old hotel.

Thanks for joining me today on HHH. Have a wonderful month, until we meet again.




________________________________________________________________

Multi award-winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and spending her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan. Married to her high school sweetheart, they are living happily-ever-after with their six children, three in-loves, and ten grandchildren in Florida, the sunshine state. Michele loves to hear from readers on Facebook, Twitter, and here through the group blog, Heroes, Heroines, and History at HHHistory.com.

Michele is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Nine Historic Places to Visit in Saint Augustine, Florida.

After posting a brief history of Saint Augustine, Florida here on HHH last month, I began to wonder about the history of specific places in the old city. The Castillo de San Marcos, The Old Jail, The Saint Augustine Lighthouse, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Treasury Street, The Saint Augustine Alligator Farm, the Old Wooden School House, Ponce de Leon Hotel (Flagler College), and The Fountain of Youth are the places we’ll explore today. 

There are more—many more, but we’ll keep it to nine . . . For now.

   

1. The Fountain of Youth. Located in the Fountain of Youth National Archaeological Park in St. Augustine, it could be considered Florida’s first tourist attraction. The park observes Ponce de Leon’s 1513 quest for the legendary Fountain of Youth and overlooks the Matanzas River and St. Augustine Inlet. The park also boasts beautiful flora and wildlife.



2. Castillo de San Marcos. Actually, the tenth fort built in Saint Augustine, construction on the Castillo de San Marcos began October of 1672 and took 23 years to complete. The coquina used to construct the thick fort walls was

Castillo de San Marcos

excavated across the bay from Anastasia Island. The builders were concerned about the stability of the porous coquina rock mix, but as the first battle against the fort ensued, the inhabitants were pleasantly surprised that the coquina practically absorbed the heavy cannon ball hits instead of the blasts cracking the masonry upon impact. The fort is the oldest masonry fort in America. 


 

The Old Saint Augustine Jail

3. The Old Saint Augustine Jail. Located at 167 San Marco Ave, St Augustine, FL, the jail was built in 1891 by hotel magnate and Standard Oil partner, Henry Flagler. The jail remained in use until 1953. The hotelier decided to make the jail an attractive addition to his new winter resort town and used many of the same materials he used to build his hotel. For instance, the interior walls are pink plaster. This rare example of a nineteenth-century jail now serves as a museum.



4. Ponce DeLeon Hotel (Flagler College). Built by Henry Flagler to bring the rich and famous to East Central Florida coast, the luxury hotel opened in 1887/8.

Ponce DeLeon Hotel (Flagler College)

One of the first hotels in Florida to use electricity, the massive concrete structure used more than 4,000 lightbulbs powered by four coal-powered boilers. Unfortunately, the hotel was plagued by problems in its infancy. An epidemic of yellow fever and one of the coldest winters on record made for a slow start to the resort’s eventual success. The hotel was eventually turned into Flagler College.


 

Flicker.com

5. The Saint Augustine Alligator Farm. This zoological park opened in 1893 and is still in operation today. The Saint Augustine Alligator Farm houses all twenty-three recognized types of crocodilian.



6. The Old Wooden School House. Located close to the city gate, the actual date of construction is unknown, though the old school house appears on tax annals

Old Wooden School House

as early as 1716. The building is said to be the oldest wooden school house in America.



7. Treasury Street. Believed to be narrowest street still in use, the old road is just under seven feet wide. Legend claims residents built the street just wide enough for two men to carry a treasure chest from the bay to the city bank. Therefor, not allowing a horse drawn carriage to pull up and make off with the gold.

8. Ripley’s Believe It Or Not. St. Augustine Florida is the first permanent Ripley’s attraction. The three-story-high, castle style building where Ripley’s is located contains over 800 exhibits including interactive oddities, bizarre displays and even some of Mr. Ripley’s original collection.



9. The Saint Augustine Lighthouse. Located on Lighthouse Avenue, the 164-foot-

Saint Augustine Lighthouse

tall, active lighthouse opened in October 1874. The lighthouse is open to the public and offers general tours, a maritime museum, and ghost tours.



Many tales of romance, war and bravery have been told about Saint Augustine’s colonial days. Soldiers, pirates, explorers and oil magnates are just a few of the characters who have had a place in the stories of the area. For a historical romance writer—it doesn’t get much better than discovering the past of Saint Augustine.



I hope you enjoyed a reading about a few of the attractions to explore in the old city of Saint Augustine Florida. Thanks for stopping by HHH and have a wonderful month—until we meet again.

Michele

________________________________________________________________

 

Multi award-winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and spending her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan. Married to her high school sweetheart, they are living happily-ever-after with their six children, three in-loves, and ten grandchildren in Florida, the sunshine state. Michele loves to hear from readers on Facebook, Twitter, and here through the group blog, Heroes, Heroines, and History at HHHistory.com.

Michele is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.

Historic Saint Augustine Part One

Saint Augustine, Florida is a modern-day mixture of historical buildings and tourist focused attractions for which Florida is so well known. The city is located on the east coast or the north-central area of the peninsula and is approximately nine-and-a-half square miles.

Boasting a Christmas illumination display that would make Clark Griswold proud,

Courtesy of Flicker.com

Saint Augustine’s Night of Light’s is one of the nation’s brightest with almost two-million lights. The restaurants range from exclusive gastronome to old fashioned empanada meat pies. Spooky nighttime tours of the haunted downtown and the striped, Saint Augustine Lighthouse are but a few fun things to fill your evenings.

The area is steeped in history from the early sixteenth-century, to the civil war, to WWII, and into the twenty-first century.

Here’s a bit of early history about Saint Augustine and the surrounding area.

1. In 1513, Spanish explorer, Juan Ponce de Leon lived in Puerto Rico. He left the islands to explore the northern continent on March 4 and arrived on the Florida coast on April 2. Along with three commissioned ships, the Santiago, the San Cristobal, and the Santa Maria de la Consolacion, the adventurer traveled 

Courtesy Wikicommons

the coastline of Florida from Mosquito Inlet to Charlotte Harbor. De Leon named his discovery, La Florida, in honor of the Easter Season and Pascua Florida, the Spanish festival of flowers. Legend says de Leon was in search of—not gold—but a fountain of youth the native population said existed in the area. Today, you can visit the mythological fountain in the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park near Saint Augustine. 

2. 1565, King Phillip II of Spain sent Pedro Menendez de Aviles to Florida after he learned the French had established a settlement near Jacksonville, Florida—an intrusion onto Spanish lands in the New World.

Pedro Menendez de Aviles arrived on the Florida coast with 10 ships and 1500 men around September 1565. His orders were to establish an outpost for Spain along the coast and eliminate the French settlements on Spanish land.
He settled St. Augustine then immediately attacked Fort Caroline, a French settlement near Jacksonville, Florida. During the conquest, Menendez ordered some of the Frenchmen to be hung from trees. He carved a message into a tree trunk that read "Hanged Not as Frenchmen but as Lutherans."
Menendez continued his quest until he fulfilled his promise to the king to eliminate the French and establish St. Augustine for Spain.

3. Sir Francis Drake, English sea captain, privateer, naval officer, slave trader and explorer, attacked St. Augustine in 1586. His forces destroyed the wooden fort, San Juan de Pinillo. 

Boazio map. Courtesy wiki-media

An Italian artist who traveled with Drake, Boazio, rendered a map of the city during the siege. Boazio’s drawing is the earliest portrayal of the city of Saint Augustine and provides historians with important landmarks and information about the design of the city.

4. Carolina Charter of 1665 enlarged the original grant for the Carolina Colony. The new boundary extended into Spanish territory and was defined as 29° north latitude. The extension of the Charter encompassed Saint Augustine. The city had been controlled by the Spanish for over 100 years. A border dispute between the English and Spanish erupted in the Americas. The dispute wasn’t fully settled until the Georgia colony was formed.

The history of Saint Augustine is sometimes overlooked in the modern teaching of American history. We tend to focus on the Plymouth Colony and the Virginia Colony, forgetting the Spanish imprint on the New World. Though sometimes violent, the contribution of men like King Phillip II, Juan Ponce de Leon and Pedro Menendez de Aviles are huge and worthy of a place in America’s textbooks. Have you visited Florida or the Saint Augustine area? What did you think? Please, leave a comment below and let us know about your experiences in the historic city. And don't forget part two of the history of Saint Augustine will post the 27th of July.

   

Multi award-winning author, Michele K. Morris’s love for historical fiction began when she first read Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House book series. She grew up riding horses and spending her free time in the woods of mid-Michigan. Married to her high school sweetheart, they are living happily-ever-after with their six children, three in-loves, and ten grandchildren in Florida, the sunshine state. Michele loves to hear from readers on Facebook, Twitter, and here through the group blog, Heroes, Heroines, and History at HHHistory.com.

Michele is represented by Tamela Hancock Murray of the Steve Laube Agency.