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A shot taken from the Castillo de San Marcos grounds on the Matanzas River in St. Augustine, FL.
You can almost see the cheery postcard greeting now.
"Throughout its history, the Castillo de San Marcos National Monument has been closely intertwined with St Augustine and the neighboring structures which served as the city's outer defenses - Fort Mose to the north and Fort Matanzas to the south. The Castillo and the town serve as outstanding reminders of the might of the early Spanish empire in the New World. Given the architectural details, it's hardly surprising that Castillo de San Marcos actually took 23 years to build (from 1672 to 1695)."
From www.oldcity.com
I was more into the look and lines of the tree and not really the Fort. By going to a sepia, I think I got a more dramatic shot.
(St. Augustine -- Castillo de San Marcos)
Thanks for stopping by!
Castillo de San Marcos ... this is a tiny room with a tiny opening ... you have to crawl in on your knees. The powder was kept in here, to stay dry.
On our second day in the Jacksonville area, we headed east to St Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established city in the US.
Saint Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He named the settlement "San Agustín", as his ships bearing settlers, troops, and supplies from Spain had first sighted land in Florida on August 28, 1565, the feast day of St. Augustine.
The city served as the capital of Spanish Florida for over 200 years, and remained the capital of East Florida when the territory briefly changed hands between Spain and Britain. It was designated the capital of the Florida Territory until Tallahassee was made the capital in 1824.
It is brimming with Colonial history, and it was also among the pivotal sites of the Civil Rights Movement in 1963–1964.
National Park Service "Castillo de San Marcos Tour Brochure" 2011 Scanned Brochure, St. Augustine Florida
While St. Augustine is known for being the oldest city in the United States, it was also for the longest time under Spanish rule. Once Spain had signed over the state of Florida to the United States, they became owners of St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos. One of the first things that they did when they received the fort was changing the name to honor General Francis Marion. So it was changed from the Castillo de San Marcos to Fort Marion. Along with the name change they also had a lot of physical changes in mind, as can be seen in the brochure that has been scanned. Structurally, very little changed, as the fort itself was nigh impenetrable, as no one beforehand was able to take the fort by force, the only way it changed hands was by signing it over by treaties. Many of the rooms that were store rooms were changed to prisons, and the original moat was changed to fit a water battery, so that it would be harder to overpower the fort from close quarter combat.
It was mainly changed from being a fort that held troops to a prison that held Native Americans from at least a dozen tribes, from the Apache, to the Cheyenne, to the Kiowa. This was done mainly to keep the morale of the Native Americans down during the United States push for Manifest Destiny during the late 1800s.
Once the Fort had changed hands between the Confederacy and Union during the civil war, this was the only time the fort had been taken by force, as a union gunboat went in and took over Fort Marion without having fired a shot. This was only due to the confederates having deserted the fort. During the Spanish American war, though, the fort continued its role as a prison, holding hundreds of people who were considered deserters from the American Army.
Zonderman, David A. "Museum Society Reviews." Journal of American History 91, no. 1 (2004): 27-32.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Marion#First_United_States_period
D607_294
03/10/2011 : Saint Augustine, FL, South Castillo Dr, Castillo de San Marcos (1672-95): coquina
This plaster face in the wall is supposed to be the ghost of Seminole Chief Osceola. They swear it happened naturally, that no one picked at the plaster to make this image. Oooooo...
Taken at Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, FL 2005
Following the 1668 attack by the English pirate Robert Searle, it was decided by Mariana the Queen Regent of Spain that a stone fortification be constructed to protect the city. In October 1672 construction began on the fort that would become the Castillo de San Marcos.
Located in St. Augustine, founded by the Spanish in 1565. The First city to be establish by Europeans (that has been in continuous use.)