u Industrialist Henry M. Flagler, shown here around 1904, left his mark on St. Augustine by building houses and hotels and by financing the building of churches and other structures.
l With its white and black stripes, St. Augustine Lighthouse stands guard on Anastasia Island across the Matanzas River from St. Augustine.
capitalized on this influx of visitors from the winter-weary North by buying up all of the area’s railroads and establishing the Florida East Coast Railway, thus providing convenient transportation to and from St. Augustine.
The most spectacular of Flagler’s hotels, the Hotel Ponce de León, was completed in 1888. Constructed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival architec- tural style, the handsome low-rise, multiwinged building, with its broad archways, stately towers, and terra- cotta rooftops, has now become home to Flagler College, a four-year liberal arts college.
The lighthouse that stands here now was completed in 1874. The lighthouse and its companion museum are open to visitors, and the adventurous and hardy are invited to climb the 219 steps to the top of the structure to experience one of the most stunning views afforded in the area. The ocean wind whistles around you as you face the sea or the city.
In the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, just as the lighthouse guided and beckoned seafarers, St. Augustine, with its temperate climate, fragrant orange
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groves (now gone after devastating freezes), water views, and Spanish, colonial, and Victorian architecture, beckoned visitors, among them Henry M. Flagler.
Flagler was an industrialist, one of the original partners in the Standard Oil Company with John D. Rocke- feller. Pretty St. Augustine charmed Flagler, and so he decided to build three luxurious hotels here. It wasn’t long before visitors of means began to make their way to St. Augustine, and the city’s nickname became “the Newport of the South” (referring to an opulent, well-heeled city in the northeastern United States). Flagler
Across King Street stands a building that was first built by Flagler in 1889 as another hotel. Originally known as the Alcazar Hotel, this lovely Spanish Renaissance Revival– style building looks almost modest in comparison to the massive Hotel Ponce de León, but it offered many luxuries to its guests, including what was once said to be the world’s largest indoor swimming pool. The Alcazar Hotel closed during the Great Depression, and was bought by Chicago publisher Otto Lightner in 1946. Lightner reopened the building in 1948 as a museum to showcase his collection of fine cut glass, Tiffany pieces, ornate antique furniture, mechanical gadgets, and other items
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PHOTO: ©RICHARD CUMMINS/CORBIS
PHOTO: © BETTMANN/CORBIS
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