1822 -
St. George Street 1861 and
today
American Rule: Florida was ceded to the U.S. by Spain in the 1819 Adams–Onís
Treaty, ratification of the treaty took place in 1821 and it officially
became a U.S. possession as the Florida
Territory, in 1822, with future president Andrew
Jackson as the military governor, succeeded by William Pope DuVal as
territorial governor. Florida gained statehood in 1845.
After the U.S. took possession of Florida in 1821, the Castillo de
San Marcos (British, Fort St. Marks) was renamed Fort Marion for Francis
Marion, the "Swamp Fox" of the American Revolution.
During the Second Seminole
War of 1835–1842 the fort served as a prison for Seminole captives including the famed leader Osceola, John Cavallo (John
Horse) as well as Coacoochee (Wildcat), who made a daring escape from the fort with nineteen other
Seminoles.
St. Augustine
waterfront, Slave Market and Town Plaza, 1860’s
In 1861, the American Civil
War began and Florida seceded from the Union and joined the Confederacy. On the 7th of January 1861, prior to Florida's formal secession, a
local militia unit, the St. Augustine Blues, took possession of St. Augustine's
military facilities, including Fort
Marion and the St. Francis
Barracks, from the lone Union ordnance sergeant on duty.
Crew from the USS Wabash reoccupied the city for the U.S. government without opposition on
the 11th of March 1862 and it remained under Union control for the remainder of
the war. In 1865, Florida rejoined the United States.
After the war, former slaves in St. Augustine established the
community of Lincolnville in 1866, named after President Abraham Lincoln. Lincolnville, with
the largest concentration of Victorian
Era homes in St. Augustine, also became a key setting for the Civil
Rights Movement a century latter.
The Ponce de León
Hotel 1901
After the Civil War, Fort Marion was used twice, in the 1870’s and
then again in the 1880’s, to house first Plains Indians and then Apaches who
were captured in the west. The daughter of Geronimo was born at Fort Marion, and was named Marion, though she later
chose to change her name. The fort was also used as a military prison during the
Spanish-American War of 1898. It was finally removed from the Army's active duty
rolls in 1900 after two hundred and five years of service under five different
flags. It is now run by the National Park Service, and called the Castillo de
San Marcos National Monument or Bear’s
Fort.
Flagler Era: Henry
Flagler, a partner of John D. Rockefeller in Standard
Oil arrived in St. Augustine in the 1880’s and was the driving force
behind turning the city into a winter resort for the wealthy northern elite.
Flagler bought a number of local railroads which were incorporated into the
Florida East Coast
Railway, which built its headquarters in St. Augustine.
Flagler contracted 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 built partly on land purchased from Flaglers' friend and associate
Andrew
Anderson and partly on the bed of Maria Sanchez Creek, which Flagler had
filled with the archaeological remains of the original Fort
Mose. Flagler built or contributed to several churches, including Grace
Methodict, Ancient City Baptist, and most ornate, the Venetian-style
Memorial Presbyterian
Church.
Flagler had Albert
Spalding design a baseball park in the town and the waiters at his hotels,
under the leadership of Frank P. Thompson, formed one of America's pioneer
professional black baseball teams, the Ponce de Leon Giants. It later became the
Cuban Giants, and one of the team members,
Frank
Grant, has been inducted into the Baseball Hall of
Fame.
In the 1880’s, there was no public hospital between Daytona Beach and
Jacksonville. On the 22nd of May 1888, Flagler invited St. Augustine's most
influential ladies to his Ponce de León Hotel and offered them a hospital if the
community would commit to operate and maintain the facility. The Alicia Hospital
opened on the 1st of March 1890, as a not-for-profit institution, but was
renamed Flagler
Hospital in 1905.
The extravagant Florida Land Boom of the 1920’s left its mark on St.
Augustine with the establishment (though not completion) of Davis Shores, a
landfill project on the marshy north end of Anastasia Island, which was promised
to be "America's Foremost Watering Place". It was reached, from downtown St.
Augustine by the Bridge of
Lions, billed as "The Most Beautiful Bridge in Dixie" (own
blog).
During World War II, St. Augustine hotels were used for the training
of Coast Guardsmen, including the celebrated artist Jacob
Lawrence and actor Buddy
Ebsen. It was also a popular place for R&R for soldiers from nearby
Camp Blanding, including Andy
Rooney and Sloan
Wilson who went on to write the classic 1950’s novel The Man in the Gray Flannel
Suit.
Martin Luther
King Jr. being denied entry to the whites only
Monson Motor Lodge restaurant by owner Jimmy Brock. Current site of Hilton
Hotel.
Civil rights movement: St. Augustine was a pivotal site for the Civil Rights
Movement in 1963–1964. Efforts by African
Americans to integrate the public schools and public accommodations such as
lunch counters were met with arrests and Ku Klux
Klan violence. Non-violent protesters were arrested for participating in peaceful picket lines,
sit-ins, and marches. Homes were firebombed, black leaders were assaulted and
threatened with death, and fired from their jobs. In the spring of 1964, St. Augustine civil rights leader Robert
Hayling asked the Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) and its leader Martin Luther King,
Jr. for assistance. From May until July 1964, they carried out marches,
sit-ins, and other forms of peaceful protest in St. Augustine.
Hundreds of black and white civil rights
supporters were arrested, and the jails were filled to overflowing. At the
request of Hayling and King, white civil rights supporters from the north,
including students, clergy, and well known public figures, came to St. Augustine
and were arrested. The KKK responded with violent attacks that were widely reported in
national and international media. Popular revulsion against the Klan violence
generated national sympathy for the black protesters and became a key factor in
passage of the Civil Rights Act of
1964. In 2010, former United Nations
Ambassador Andrew Young premiered his movie, "Crossing in St. Augustine" about
the 1964 struggles against Jim Crow segregation. Young is now working to
establish a National Civil Rights Museum in St. Augustine, which could be part
of a St. Augustine National Historical Park and Seashore.
The Lyric and New
Amsterdam Cinemas. Bridge of Lions and Old Shoe (soon to be the Luff Bug)
ALL IN
ALL THE TOWN HAS BEEN VERY WELCOMING TO US
A VERY RICH
HISTORY
