50 Fun Facts About St. Augustine

St. Augustine, Florida, was founded by settlers from which country?

Founded in 1565, it is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the contiguous United States.

Which Spanish admiral founded St. Augustine on September 8, 1565?

He was Florida's first governor and had been sent partly to wipe out the French Huguenots at Fort Caroline.

Why was the settlement named San Agustín?

The fleet spotted the Florida coast on August 28, eleven days before the formal landing.

Which continuously inhabited city in a US territory is older than St. Augustine?

San Juan dates to 1521; Jamestown was not founded until 1607.

Which Native people lived in the area, in the village of Seloy, when the Spanish arrived?

The Franciscan Mission Nombre de Dios was founded at the landing point to serve their villages.

What does 'Matanzas', the name of the inlet and river south of the city, mean in Spanish?

Menéndez executed the shipwrecked French Huguenots of Jean Ribault there in 1565.

Which English privateer sacked and burned St. Augustine in 1586?

The town's first parish church burned in the raid; the killing of his sergeant major prompted Drake to raze the town.

The Castillo de San Marcos is built from what local stone?

The name means 'small shells'; it was quarried on Anastasia Island and ferried across the bay.

Why did British cannon fire have so little effect on the Castillo's walls?

Rather than shattering, the balls simply sank into the coquina.

In what year was construction of the Castillo completed, after 23 years of work?

Work had begun in October 1672; the fort was never taken by force under any of its four flags.

How many times has the Castillo been taken by force in its history?

It changed hands five times between Spain, Britain and the United States, always peacefully.

Under American rule the Castillo was renamed after which Revolutionary War figure?

Fort Marion later held a famous Seminole leader and, decades on, Geronimo's Chiricahua Apache.

Which Native American art form is said to have originated among Plains prisoners held at the fort?

Howling Wolf of the southern Cheyenne was among the artists imprisoned there.

Fort Mose, founded north of the city in 1738, holds what distinction?

Escaped slaves from the Carolinas were granted freedom in exchange for militia service and conversion to Catholicism.

Which 1763 agreement handed Florida, and St. Augustine, to Great Britain?

Spain got Havana and Manila back in the deal; Florida returned to Spain twenty years later.

Which of these Founding Fathers was NOT among the three held prisoner in the Castillo by the British?

All three captives had signed the Declaration for South Carolina and were seized when Charleston fell.

Under which agreement, ratified in 1821, did Florida pass from Spain to the United States?

St. Augustine and Pensacola then alternated as capital of the Florida Territory.

Which Seminole leader was imprisoned in the fort during the Second Seminole War?

Twenty other Seminole prisoners squeezed out through an embrasure and escaped in 1837.

Which Standard Oil co-founder transformed St. Augustine into a Gilded Age resort in the 1880s?

He found the town charming but its hotels and transport inadequate, and set about fixing both.

Which friend of Flagler's supplied the electricity system for the Ponce de Leon Hotel?

It was among the first buildings in the world designed for electric light from the start, with Tiffany glass in the dining room.

The Ponce de Leon Hotel was the first major project of which famous architecture firm?

They went on to design the New York Public Library; the hotel was the first of its kind built entirely of poured concrete.

Since 1968 the old Ponce de Leon Hotel has been the centrepiece of which institution?

The rival Hotel Alcazar across the street now houses the Lightner Museum.

How tall is the black-and-white spiral-striped St. Augustine Lighthouse tower, completed in 1874?

It stands at the north end of the island and still houses its original first-order Fresnel lens.

In which year was Florida's first lighthouse lit at St. Augustine?

During the Civil War a local customs officer led a 'Coastal Guard' that disabled lighthouses to help blockade runners.

The Bridge of Lions takes its name from marble copies of lions found in which Italian city?

They are Carrara-marble copies of the Medici lions in the Loggia dei Lanzi; the bascule bridge opened in 1927.

The Bridge of Lions connects downtown St. Augustine to which barrier island?

It replaced a wooden span known simply as the Bridge to Anastasia Island.

What record does the parish of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, dating to 1565, hold?

The current church was built from 1793 to 1797 after the first burned in Drake's 1586 raid; it became a basilica in 1976.

Which explorer is the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park loosely linked to?

The park's 'spring' was promoted from 1904 by Luella 'Diamond Lil' McConnell, who invented tales to amuse tourists.

Where in St. Augustine was Martin Luther King Jr. arrested in June 1964?

Images from the St. Augustine campaign helped push the Civil Rights Act of 1964 through the Senate.

Which local dentist and civil rights leader invited the SCLC and King to St. Augustine?

He had founded an NAACP Youth Council that staged wade-ins at segregated pools.

What is the name of St. Augustine's annual holiday festival that illuminates the historic district?

Millions of white lights go up across the colonial quarter each winter.

Which pirate raided St. Augustine in 1668, prompting Spain to finally fund a stone fortress?

He was retaliating for the Spanish destruction of New Providence in the Bahamas.

Which governor of Georgia besieged St. Augustine in 1740 and failed to take the fort?

Realising his guns could not dent the coquina, he tried to starve the town out instead.

Saint Augustine of Hippo was born in 354 in Thagaste, in what is now which country?

The town is now Souk Ahras; his mother Monica was likely of Berber origin.

Which bishop of Milan baptised Augustine in 386?

Ambrose adopted him as a spiritual son after Augustine's father died.

Which faith did the young Augustine follow for about ten years, to his mother's dismay?

He never rose above 'auditor', the lowest rank, and a disappointing meeting with its bishop Faustus began his doubts.

Augustine's Confessions is often described as the first Western example of what?

It includes the story of stealing pears as a boy, his first insight into the nature of sin.

According to Augustine, what words did he hear a child's voice say just before his conversion?

The Latin 'tolle, lege' sent him to open the Bible at random in a Milan garden.

Which Germanic people were besieging Hippo when Augustine died in 430?

They lifted the siege soon after his death, then came back and burned the city.

Saint Augustine is regarded as the patron saint of which trade?

He is also patron of printers and theologians, and is invoked against sore eyes.

St. Augustine is the county seat of which Florida county?

The city sits about 40 miles south of downtown Jacksonville and had a population of 14,329 at the 2020 census.

Villa Zorayda, built in 1883 on King Street, was modelled on which Spanish palace?

Boston millionaire Franklin W. Smith built it as a winter home and it was the first poured-concrete building in the city, a technique Flagler borrowed for his hotels.

Henry Flagler's Hotel Alcazar once boasted the world's largest what?

The hotel closed in 1932; the drained pool now hosts the Cafe Alcazar beneath the Lightner Museum's ballroom balcony.

In 1993, for its centenary, the St. Augustine Alligator Farm became the first to display what?

The attraction opened on May 20, 1893 at the end of a railway on Anastasia Island, where the alligators were at first just a lure to sell souvenirs.

Who wrote Cross and Sword, the 1965 outdoor drama that became Florida's official state play?

The play marked the city's 400th anniversary and ran for ten weeks every summer for more than 30 years before closing in 1996.

Which Chicago publisher bought the Hotel Alcazar in 1947 and turned it into a museum?

He filled it with his Victorian collections, handed it to the city, and the museum opened in 1948; exhibits include a shrunken head and a small Egyptian mummy.

How tall is the stainless-steel Great Cross at Mission Nombre de Dios?

It was dedicated in October 1966 for the mission's 400th anniversary and rises above the Matanzas marshes.

Fort Matanzas, the Spanish watchtower guarding the inlet, was sited where?

Visitors still reach it by a five-minute boat ride; it fired on an enemy only once, driving off Oglethorpe's scouting boats in 1742.

Villa Zorayda takes its name from a princess in a book by which American author?

The phrase 'There is no conqueror but God', copied from the Alhambra's walls, is inscribed in Arabic above the front door.

St. Augustine's 'Menorcans' were refugees who fled in 1777 from which failed colony?

Dr. Andrew Turnbull's settlers included Italians, Corsicans and Greek islanders, yet the whole group is still known locally by the one name.