St. Augustine

The town of St. Augustine was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles in 1565 in response to the French settlement of Fort Caroline, on Spanish soil at the mouth of the St. Johns River. The goal of this expedition was to eliminate the potential threat to shipping along the Gulf Stream, and to establish a northern barrier colony, barring invasion of Florida. It was the sixth attempt to permanently colonize Florida, and was the only successful one, now touting itself as the oldest consistently inhabited settlement in America.

As the English established more colonies in the Carolinas and in Georgia, they began to pose more of a threat, a motive for the Spanish to construct the Castillo de San Marcos. In 1702, shortly after the fort was built, British forces from Charleston attacked the town and participated in a two month siege on the fort. They eventually gave up, burning the town as they left. Echoing this occurrence, in 1740 British General Oglethorpe, the Governor of Georgia, attempted to take the fort but also failed, and he burned the town again.

Despite being burned several times throughout its lifetime, St. Augustine managed to hold itself together until the present day. There are, however, only nine houses left in the town dating to the colonial era, and much of the regional architecture is Spanish-influenced but built in the eighteenth century.

In the late nineteenth century, railroad mogul and industrialist Henry Flagler brought the Florida East Coast Railway to St. Augustine and developed the town as a winter resort for wealthy northerners. Many of the massive hotels and homes built in this era now function as museums or were added to the college campus named for him. He would later continue to move down the coast of the state, revitalizing small towns as the rail line passed through.

Today, St. Augustine is a tourist destination and a National Historic Landmark. It is the home of Flagler College and