Saint Augustine, on the Matanzas and San Sebastian
rivers, near the Atlantic Ocean; incorporated 1824. Points of
interest in the picturesque city include the Castillo de San Marcos (begun
1672), the oldest masonry fort in the continental United States, and Fort
Matanzas (built 1740-42), both now part of separate national monuments;
the Cathedral of Saint Augustine, erected in the 1790s; San Agustin
Antiguo, a reconstruction of several colonial buildings; the Lightner
Museum, containing displays of 19th-century decorative arts; and the
Fountain of Youth, a park commemorating the landing here of the Spanish
explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513. The city is also the site of Flagler
College (1963).
St. Augustine, established in 1565 by the Spanish
explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, is the oldest permanent European
settlement in the U.S. The community was burned and sacked by the English
navigator Sir Francis Drake in 1586. In 1821 the Spanish ceded St.
Augustine to the United States. During the American Civil War, the city
was captured by Union forces in 1862. In the late 19th century St.
Augustine was developed as a resort by the financier Henry M.
Flagler.
