L ANDMARKS OF ST. AUGUSTINE
1565
Mission Nombre de Dios
1672
Castillo de San Marco
1704
1513
Juan Ponce de Leon
City Gates
1565
Pedro Menendez de Aviles
1570
Aviles Street
1888
1742
Ponce de Leon Hotel
Fort Matanzas
1880
Henry Flagler
1927
Bridge of Lions
1887
Alcazar Hotel
1874
The Lighthouse
1889
Memorial Presbyterian Church
1513
In April, the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de Leon landed
on the Florida coast while searching for the Fountain
of Youth. Because he arrived during
the
Easter
season,
known as the Pascua Florida, Ponce named his new discovery La Florida, and claimed the
land for Spain. He also made a discovery that would lead to
the creation of St. Augustine. Sailing
along
coastline,
the
Ponce
de
Florida
Leon
realized that a strong current
was carrying his ships rapidly northward. This would aid in quickly returning Spanish ships home and was later called the Gulf Stream.
1565
On July 28, Menendez set
sail from Spain to conquer Florida. Led by his flagship the
San Pelayo, the leading ships reached Puerto Rico on August 8. He left Puerto Rico on August
15 with five ships, reached
Cape Canaveral on August 25, turned north and spent the next few days looking in vain for the French. Indians directed
him north, to what the French
called the River of Dolphins. On
the feast day of St. Augustine, August 28, he sailed through
the inlet and named the area after the saint.
1565
The mission traces its origins
to September 8, when Pedro MenĂŠndez de AvilĂŠs landed with a band of settlers to found
St. Augustine. Father Francisco
Lopez de Mendoza Grajales, who was the chaplain of the expedition,
celebrated
the
first Thanksgiving Mass on the
grounds. A formal Franciscan mission was founded near the city in 1587, perhaps the
first mission in the continental United States. The mission
served nearby villages of the
Mocama, a Timucua group, and was at the center of an important chiefdom in the late 16th and 17th century.
Aviles Street has the distinction
of being the oldest public street in the country. The thoroughfare
appears
on
archival maps dating from as
far back as the early 1570s. Spanish
settlers
originally
named the road Hospital Street because there was a colonial
military hospital located along the thoroughfare. The name
was later changed to honor the
Spanish hometown of the city’s founder. A wooden gateway
arch at the corner of King Street supported by granite
pillars marks the entrance to the historic street.
1672
The governor at the time
collected funds and found an
experienced military engineer, Ignacio Daza, to design a new
fort. A readily available building material was discovered on
nearby Anastasia Island. Called coquina, it is rock composed of tiny seashells concreted
together beneath the sea. An elaborate system of ferry boats
was required to transport the coquina, and an earthwork
surrounding the fort was built
from soil removed for a moat. Pirates,
huge
storms,
and
deaths of both the governor and
the
designer
caused
progress to lag. This huge
construction project resulted in a sharp increase in the
population of St. Augustine as
skilled craftsmen, engineers, laborers and slaves became
residents. By August 1695, the massive Castillo was at last complete and it was christened
as the “Castillo de San Marcos�
The Spanish began construction of the Cubo line, a powerful earthen wall backed by palmetto
logs. From the outworks of the
Castillo de San Marcos, the wall extended west across the
northern end of town to the San Sebastian River.
Along this line were the main gates to the city and several larger
fortifications
called
redoubts. The redoubts added
extra power to the line and
provided locations for artillery emplacements.
That the walls were effective is evident from the fact that
St. Augustine was never again conquered after they were built.
Fort Matanzas was built by the Spanish to guard Matanzas Inlet, which could
be used as a rear entrance
to the city of St. Augustine. Such an approach avoided St.
Augustine’s
primary
defense system, centered
at Castillo de San Marcos. Construction of the fort
began in 1740 and was completed in 1742.
With the Spanish Empire
falling apart, Spain spent little
effort
maintaining
the fort after the Treaty of Paris, 1783. When the
United States took control of Florida in 1821, the fort
had deteriorated to the point where soldiers could
not live inside. The United
States never used the fort and it became a ruin.
St. Augustine was the site of
the first lighthouse established
in Florida by the new American Government in 1824. This
lighthouse was placed on the
site of an earlier watchtower
built by the Spanish as early as the late 16th century.
Facing erosion and a changing
coastline, the old watchtower crashed
into
the
sea
in
1880, but not before a new lighthouse was lit. Today, the tower ruins may still be seen at low tide.
By 1870, beach erosion was
threatening the first lighthouse. Construction on a new light
tower began in 1871, and was completed in 1874.
1880
Henry Flagler, a partner with
John D. Rockefeller in Standard
Oil, arrived in St. Augustine in the 1880s. He was the driving
force behind turning the city into a winter resort for the wealthy
northern
elite.[88]
Flagler bought a number of
local railroads and incorporated
them into the Florida East Coast
Railway; it built its headquarters in St. Augustine.
Flagler commissioned the New York architectural firm of Carrère
and Hastings to design a number
of extravagant buildings in St. Augustine, among them the Ponce de Leon Hotel and the Alcazar Hotel.
1887 The
Alcazar
Hotel
commissioned
by
was
Henry
Flagler to appeal to wealthy
tourists who traveled south for the winter on his railroad, the Florida East Coast Railway.
The hotel was designed by New
York
City
architects
Carrère and Hastings, in the Spanish Renaissance Revival style.
The hotel had a steam room, massage parlor, sulfur baths, gymnasium, ballroom, largest
a
and
indoor
three-storey
the
world’s
swimming
pool; however, after years as an elegant winter resort for wealthy patrons, the hotel closed in 1932.
1888
The hotel was the first of its kind constructed entirely of poured concrete,
using
the
local
coquina stone as aggregrate. The hotel also was wired for electricity at the onset, with the power being supplied
by D.C. generators supplied by Flagler’s friend, Thomas
Edison. When electricity was first put in Henry Flagler hired staff to turn power on and off
for his residents, because the
people staying at the hotel were too afraid to turn the switches on and off.
1889
The Memorial Presbyterian Church is a historic church built by Henry
Flagler and dedicated in honor of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict,
who
died
following
complications from childbirth the same year. Designed
by
the
New
York
architectural firm of Carrère and
Hastings in the Second Renaissance Revival style and inspired by St
Mark’s Basilica in Venice, the church was built utilizing poured concrete
mixed with crushed coquina stone. Like the Alcazar and Ponce de Leon, many of the architectural details were created with terra cotta.
Upon Flagler’s death in 1913
he was interred in a marble mausoleum
within
the
church
beside his daughter Jennie Louise and her infant Marjorie, as well as
his first wife Mary Harkness Flagler.
1927
The “Father of the Bridge of
Lions” was Henry Rodenbaugh, the vice president and bridge expert
for
Henry
Flagler’s
Florida East Coast Railway.
In the early 1920s, he organized
the bond issue to finance a new
bridge to replace the one built in 1895, and it was completed in 1927.
It gets its name from two
Carrara marble Medici lions statues that are copies of those
found in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence, Italy. The statues were
a gift of Dr. Andrew Anderson, who had them made by the
Romanelli Studios in Florence, Italy. The Medici lions are also
known for the copies placed in the Throne Room of the Royal Palace of Madrid.
&
NOT ON MAP
Juan Ponce de Leon Town Plaza
Castillo de San Marco 1 S Castillo Drive
Henry Flagler 74 King Street
Alcazar Hotel 75 King Street
Pedro Menendez de Aviles 75 King Street
City Gates Orange Street
Ponce de Leon Hotel 74 King Street
Mission Nombre de Dios 27 Ocean Ave
Aviles Street Off of King Street
Fort Matanzas 8635 A1A Street Memorial Presbyterian Church 32 Sevilla Street
The Lighthouse 100 Red Cox Drive
Bridge of Lions Off of Cathedral Place