u Shown here is one of a pair of replica cannons visitors will find at Fountain of Youth Archeological Park in St. Augustine.
St. Augustine and held prisoner for six weeks. Conflict between the US govern- ment and the Seminoles would last until 1858, when the majority of the Seminole people were relocated to the American West.
Visiting Yesterday Today
Today there is much evidence of these early years of the nation’s oldest city founded by Europeans. The Fountain of Youth Archeological Park has been established on the site where Spanish conquistadors first came ashore here in 1513, and there are a number of archeological discoveries in the park, including the Ponce de León Landmark Cross, evidence of Don Pedro Menéndez’s original colony and its first Christian burials, and ancient Native American Timucua artifacts. Castillo de San Marcos is one of the city’s most impressive attractions, its coquina walls still standing strong along the Intracoastal Waterway. The fortress is built around its Plaza de Armas, with four bastions pointing outward at its corners. What was once a moat separates the fortress from the city, and a seawall provides more protection from threats coming from the water side. The rooms and museum contain spare but very informative exhibits that include a
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Spanish chapel, a shot furnace, a powder magazine, quarters where British troops lived during their occupation of the fort, and storage and guard rooms. Under the shadow of the watchtower, visitors await the regular ceremonial firing of the fort’s cannons by people dressed as Spanish soldiers.
St. George Street Visitors also flock to attractive St. George Street, the street that runs south from the City Gate all the way past the Plaza de la Constitución. In the 1960s, while other cities were busy building upward and making state- ments with contemporary architec- tural styles, St. Augustine decided to look to its past. Zoning regulations were specific. For example, the regulations required the buildings in the area to reflect the city’s history and did not permit them to be built taller than the tallest palm tree. As a result of thoughtful city planning such as this, today St. George Street is a marvelous collection of restored and reconstructed build- ings meant to pay homage to the architecture of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Here you’ll find original buildings like the Juan Paredes House, which was built of coquina in 1803, and the
Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse, which was built sometime during the Second Spanish Period. There are many structures with some parts that are original, such as the de Mesa–Sanchez House, which has two rooms built sometime before 1763, and the Dr. Peck House, which has stone walls dating back to the first half of the eighteenth century. Farther south, beyond the Plaza de la Constitución, are other historic properties. Among them are the Dow Museum of Historic Houses and the Oldest House Museum Complex, which includes two muse- ums, a gallery, and a garden as well as the Oldest House. Also known as the Gonzáles–Alvarez House, the struc- ture stands on a site that has been occupied by Europeans or Americans since the early seventeenth century. The most bustling part of St.
George Street, however, is found between Fort Alley and Cuna Street. Here visitors will find the Colonial Spanish Quarter Museum, a living history museum of 1740s Spanish life in St. Augustine, complete with demonstrations of shoe repairs, blacksmithing, period cooking, woodworking, and the Taberna del Gallo, a reproduction of one of the forty-some taverns in St. Augustine during the 1740s. Also on St. George Street is the Columbia Restaurant, which was established in 1905. The restaurant’s
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PHOTO: PHILIP HARTIGAN
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