2023: Jacksonville

St. Augustine, Part 1

April 4

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Today we headed to downtown St. Augustine to explore. I hoped to learn more about the history of America's oldest city. Research had convinced me that the best option was the Old Town Trolley Tour, which would enable us to hit several places without too much walking. We drove downtown, parked in the Trolley lot, and bought our tickets.


First up was the Fountain of Youth Archaelogical Park. This is a privately-owned 15-acre park which has a dubious claim to being the possible 1513 landing site of Ponce de León. There's a natural spring on the premises and you can "taste the Fountain of Youth". Yeah, I'm sure. At least the grounds and the resident peacocks were pretty.




We skipped over much of a kitschy display highlighting the pre-1565 Timucuan tribes, and the later history of the Spanish interlopers.


Once we entered the main compound, we were surprised there was not much there except a big open field with a few small structures and some foundation outlines. While scholars have debunked this area as the Ponce de León landing site in 1513, archeological excavations from 1934 into the 1990s have confirmed that this park is where Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Aviléz established the oldest continuously-occupied European settlement in North America. A billboard documenting all this claimed that the site would be undergoing a phase-based restoration. To my eye, it was in still in Phase 0.


We sat down on a bench in front of an open-air shed for an entertaining presentation by an old-timey blacksmith. He made a horseshoe right on the spot! I kept wondering if he ever gets his fingernails clean.



The only other thing to explore in the field was a replica of watchtower. You could climb to the top and take in the view that the lookouts would have seen 500 years earlier while scanning for enemy ships.




There was also a cannon-firing demonstration elsewhere on the grounds, but we had a lot to cover in one day and didn't want to wait around; so we bid the peacocks farewell and moved on.

Next we walked a couple of blocks to the Oldest Store Museum. This place was pretty interesting, a wonderful replica of an old-timey general store from the turn of the century -- the OTHER century, that is. The shelves were packed with authentic-looking products and helpful tools from that era.


A tour guide in full store-clerk costume explained and demonstrated some of the "very latest" inventions and fashions. There seemed to be one of every conceivable type of grinder or hand-operated food processor.




Our tour guide took us into the back part of the store, which was more like a farm equipment museum. She gave a demonstration of a late 1800's high-wheel bicycle. Clearly I no longer (or ever) had the balance necessary for this contraption! How did they even climb on it?




The last section contained some old furniture and a dizzying array of early washing machines, including a weird-looking electric one. There was also supposed to be a goat-powered washer, but I must have missed it with my camera.



Next up was The Old Jail. While we waited for the 11:45 tour, our appropriately-dressed tour guide subjected us, the incoming prisoners, to some hokey verbal abuse. I managed to resist my impulse to take home one of the amusing coconut-head souvenirs.


Our stripes-clad guide herded us under the lovely moss-draped trees in front of the jail building, where he directed our attention to a rickety gallows reproduction. I guess the Southwest didn't have a monopoly on hanging judges.

(BTW, did you know that the stripes on the uniforms represent prison bars? Thanks, Google!)



Inside, our group crammed into the tiny cell block. Don't those half-inch mattresses look comfy?



We continued into the jail kitchen. I'll have a pie tin full of beans, please.


The final room in the building was the sheriff's office. The door was emblazoned with the name of the sheriff who was serving when the jail was built in 1891.

Fingerprint kit.


By the early 1900's, fingerprinting was coming into use as a crime-solving tool. The old jail had an early fingerprinting kit on display.

Hang 'em high! Escapees.

We left the jail under the watchful and intimidating eye of a deputy poised to lasso us all. But we pulled off a jailbreak by boarding the waiting trolley for our next attraction, the Pirate and Treasure Museum. Seemed appropriate.