St. Augustine: History is Fun in Florida’s Old City

By Roberta Sandler

How old is St. Augustine, Florida ?

Dade pyramids at St. Augustine National Cemetery. Photo by Martin E. Sandler

Put it this way: Shakespeare was one year old when St. Augustine was founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menendez. This is the closest you’ll get to colonial Spain without leaving North America.

St. Augustine is its own Disney World: fun, colorful and entertaining but offering one additional delicious ingredient: a fascinating, expansive living history lesson.

St. Augustine is nicknamed the Old City because it was the first permanent European settlement in America (decades before the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, Massachusetts and the British at Jamestown, Virginia ). This historic area in St. Johns County along Florida ’s northeast coast is preserved behind the Old City Gates.

For families, the Old City is exciting; for couples it is also romantic, as in horse and buggy rides bordering Matanzas Bay and along brick-paved, Spanish-named streets flaunting wrought-iron balconies, arches and courtyards that were inspired by Spanish colonial architecture. This is not a city you merely pass through. It’s a destination that you go to. It’s a walking city, compact, with nearly everything accessible on foot.

The Oldest House - Photo by Roberta Sandler

St. Augustine bursts with structures listed on the National Register of Historic Places, including magnificent churches; romantic bed and breakfast inns – all of them clean, cozy and pristine (kudos to the innkeepers) – and historic hotels and museums.

Nestled between the shops and eateries on pedestrian-only St. George Street, the Colonial Spanish Quarter Museum depicts life in 18th-century St. Augustine. Here, visitors observe costumed interpreters engaged in candle-making, leather-making, blacksmithing, carpentry and other occupations. This is a great attraction for families.

So is the Oldest Schoolhouse, so named because the one-room cypress and red cedar structure dates to the early 1700s. Inside, Animatronic figures explain what schoolchildren experienced during that time.

A tourist favorite is the Gonzalez-Alvarez house, known as the “Oldest House” because the site has been occupied since the early 1600s. In the early 1700s, artilleryman Tomas Gonzalez lived in the house, but here’s the juicy part: during St. Augustine ’s British period (1763-1783), the house was owned by the British paymaster, Major Joseph Peavett and his wife, Mary, a midwife. Peavett died and Mary must have felt lonely.

Flagler College, formerly the Ponce de Leon Hotel. Photo by Martin E. Sandler

Along came a drinking, gambling, penniless Irish cad named John Hudson, who seduced Mary into marrying him. He was 28 and she was 56! John gambled away Mary’s home and was banned from St. Augustine because of his indecent public behavior.

Across the street is St. Francis Inn. Built in 1791, it was originally a home owned by a Cuban military officer, and later by a British soldier and other owners. This Spanish colonial building is now a beautiful bed and breakfast inn, much to the advantage of its guests, who enjoy live music in the courtyard, gourmet breakfast, superb hospitality and the friendly antics of – supposedly – a resident ghost named Lily. (Ghost tours are popular in St. Augustine.)

Another significant house, this one painted pink, is the Prince Achille Murat house, which was occupied by Napolean’s eccentric nephew, who married George Washington’s great-grandniece. It’s one of nine historic homes that comprise Old St. Augustine Village, located along St. George, Bridge and Cordova Streets.

Castillo de San Marcos. Photo by Martin E. Sandler

The best way to get an overview of St. Augustine is to hop onto the Old Town Trolley Tour, which serves 19 stops. Note the historic Catholic churches and the Venetian Renaissance-style Flagler Memorial Presbyterian Church, with its 150-foot-high copper dome resembling that of St. Mark’s Cathedral in Venice. Henry Flagler built it in 1889.

His footprint is indelibly stamped on the Old City (as well as Palm Beach and Key West.)

Flagler College, which offers tours, was originally Flagler’s gorgeous, Spanish Renaissance-style, Ponce de Leon Hotel, which he built in 1887. Across the street, his Alcazar Hotel is now the Lightner Museum, exhibiting eclectic treasures. Flagler also owned the Casa Monica Hotel, now a restored paean to luxury in the Old City.

Art Deco-style synagogue on Cordova Street

Amid St. Augustine’s churches, an Art Deco-style synagogue on Cordova Street seems like an anomaly. Originally Orthodox and now Liberal-Conservative, First Congregation Sons of Israel was organized in the late 19th century. The little white synagogue dates to 1923 and retains its original balcony where Orthodox women sat during services. About 50 families currently belong to the synagogue, which is open for tours by appointment.

The historic centerpiece of St. Augustine is Castillo de San Marcos National Monument. Completed in 1692, the star-shaped, bastion-system fort is the oldest extant 17th century masonry fort in North America. It was built of coquina, a limestone made from clam shells and sand.

Castillo de San Marcos was so impenetrable that it resisted the cannonballs of British and pirate invasions. Visitors here can see re-enactors demonstrate weapons of the colonial era. Guarding the southern entrance to the Old City is Fort Matanzas National Monument, built in 1740. This coquina fort is accessible only by park ranger-led boat rides. A re-enactor demonstrates musket and cannon firing. Tours are free.

An offbeat attraction is St. Augustine National Cemetery across the street from St. Francis Barracks (home of the National Guard). Beneath the cemetery’s three coquina pyramids are the remains of Major Francis Dade and 100 of his soldiers, all ambushed by Seminole Indians in 1835. The Dade Massacre spurred the Second Seminole War, the longest, bloodiest, costliest Indian war in American history. It lasted seven years.

The Oldest School. Photo by Roberta Sandler

Numerous small museums and sites are a postscript to the big attractions in the Old City, but time permitting, they warrant a visit. They include the Spanish Military Hospital, designed to show the care a patient would receive in 1791; St. Photios Greek Orthodox National Shrine, which includes a chapel filled with Byzantine-style frescoes and a museum paying homage to a 1768 Greek colony, the first such colony in America.

Here’s the bottom line about St. Augustine. History buffs will have a ball. Happy wanderers will feel like they’ve tumbled down the rabbit hole into a long-ago era. Travelers preferring to combine sightseeing with relaxation need only to depart the Old City and drive over the nearby Bridge of Lions to the beaches, hotels, state park and recreation options of Anastasia Island. There’s something for everyone in and around the Old City.

Horse and Carriages along Matanzas Bay. Photo by Martin E. Sandler