June 02, 2017

Castillo de San Marcos

This is the west wall, with a view of Bastion San Pablo. After this bastion was completed in the early 1680s, engineers noticed that it was actually a few feet lower than the rest of the gun deck. It was at its proper height by 1686. By the 1860s the top of the tower had gone missing and was replaced after the Civil War. Every inch of the Castillo has a story, stretching from 1672 to the present day. Though the majority of rooms date from 1756 (the second building phase), there are some rooms which have remained more or less untouched since the 1670s.

Fountain of Youth

Another view from the replica 16^TH century watchtower shows a portion of the historic grounds. As previously noted, this is the place where Pedro Menendez de Aviles and his band of hearty adventurers set up camp in 1565, creating the colony that would become known as San Agustín de la Florida. Spanish and Native American feet walked this earth, and most likely other cultures as well. Captured Frenchmen who agreed to convert to Catholicism, Africans who'd accompanied the Spaniards, Moors forced to hide their background . . . all are rumored to have taken part in the founding of this tenacious colony. 

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