Viva Florida 500: The Moat at the Castillo de San Marcos

When Britain ceded Florida back to Spain in 1784, Spanish Catholicism returned to Florida in force as well. In 1786, the Spanish crown ordered the construction of a new parish church for St. Augustine to replace the two burned to the ground by the British.The site of the Cathedral Basilica is bounded by St. George St. on the west, Treasury St. on the north and the Plaza de la Constitución to the south. The cornerstone was laid in 1793, and the church was of the Immaculate Conception.Today the Cathedral Parish continues the nearly 450-year history of the Catholic faith in St. Augustine and in the United States. The parish also serves St. Benedict the Moor Church, built in 1889 in the city’s historic Lincolnville area to care for the spiritual needs of those who had recently been freed as slaves.Ripley’s First and Oldest Believe It or Not! is housed in one of St. Augustine’s most unique buildings, Castle Warden, built in the 1880s out of poured concrete. Originally built by Standard Oil partner William G. Warden, it grew into a very classy hotel owned and run by author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (“The Yearling”) and her husband hotelier Norton Baskin.The Believe It Or Not!® Franchise was started by Robert Leroy Ripley, world-famous cartoonist, explorer, reporter, adventurer, illustrator, collector and aficionado of the odd and unusual. Most of the exhibits in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® museums are based on Ripley’s own collections amassed on his world travels.Proud owner of not one but several shrunken human heads, Ripley kept a 28-foot boa constrictor as a pet and let squirrels and chipmunks run around him at his drafting table while he drew. “I have traveled in 201 countries,” he once observed, “and the strangest thing I saw was man.”The construction of Castillo de San Marcos began in 1672. It’s completion in 1696 allowed the town to survive a siege by Carolina Governor James Moore, who attacked and burned St. Augustine anyway in 1702. In 1763, Florida was finally ceded to Great Britain as part of the First Treaty of Paris concluding the French and Indian War.View the list »
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Except that it’s not in Europe, the Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine is just like any other castle.

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It has a drawbridge, massive bastions (made of coquina, donax shell), cannon and ports to fire them through, and a moat.

Your Examiner was standing on one of the bastions when she happened to look down and see long, dark shapes circling El Castillo in the water below.

“Mr. Ranger, sir,” she asked a nearby US Parks Ranger, “what are those?”

“They’re sharks.”

“Hmmm … thought so. What kind?”

“Bull sharks most likely.”

“Okay.”

Most of St. Augustine is like that.

Official Bridge-of-Lions venerable History-with-a-capital-H side-by-side with tiny freak shows like the man-eating sharks in yon moat.

Ripley’s Believe It Or Not®

Ripley’s Odditorium is a prime example.

The flaghship of the Ripley’s Believe-It-Or-Not® franchise lives in an erstwhile mansion and hotel – the Castle Warden (“The Castle” owned by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings) – that was Ripley’s favorite.

The Odditorium exhibits the same weird crap that all Ripley Museums do: a mummified cat, a stuffed two-headed calf, death masks of “celebrities” (like President Lincoln), shamans’ beads and rattles, etc.

Bona fide Florida History (“The Castle”) versus Freak Show (The Odditorium)

See?

That the good people of St. Augustine saw fit to juxtapose the Old City with The Odd is a testament to their long suffering and sense of humor.

It is not just another way to fleece tourists.

It is not.

It does explain the World Famous Fountain of Youth Archeological Park and the Old Florida Museum.

More of your Florida heritage

It almost explains the Authentic Old Jail/Florida Heritage Museum.

Like El Castillo, the Old Jail is on the National Register of Historic Places.

Built by Henry Flagler in 1891, the St. Johns County Jail and the Authentic Old Jail were the same place until 1953.

In the old days, each cell had a bucket for a toilet, and prisoners had to supplement infrequent meals with animals they snared in the fields while working as forced farm labor.

Granted it’s not glamorously historical, but it is accurate.

Now the Authentic Old Jail, a museum in its own right, shares space with the Florida Heritage Museum.

You’re greeted at the door by what looks like a stuffed-and-mounted pirate.

Inside you’ll find an idiosyncratic display – old French and Spanish battle flags, posters from Barnum & Bailey and Harry Houdini shows, an automated Gypsy fortuneteller, and so on.

Whether you’re a History Snob or attracted to The Odd, you’ll have a ball in St. Augustine.

See the sights, load up on junk food, then go feed the sharks in El Castillo’s moat.

Hmmm …

How long does it take for half a hotdog to hit the water from the top of the eastern bastion?

This Examiner clocked it at about 15 seconds.

-30-

©2013 All rights reserved.

OFFICIAL BIO: K Truitt is a second-generation, native Floridian born in Jacksonville. Truitt worked in public higher education for 25 years and knows newspaper publishing, printing and graphic design. Contact: kt.4examiner@yahoo.com

View the list
  • The construction of Castillo de San Marcos began in 1672. It’s completion in 1696 allowed the town to survive a siege by Carolina Governor James Moore, who attacked and burned St. Augustine anyway in 1702. In 1763, Florida was finally ceded to Great Britain as part of the First Treaty of Paris concluding the French and Indian War.
  • Ripley’s First and Oldest Believe It or Not! is housed in one of St. Augustine’s most unique buildings, Castle Warden, built in the 1880s out of poured concrete. Originally built by Standard Oil partner William G. Warden, it grew into a very classy hotel owned and run by author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings (“The Yearling”) and her husband hotelier Norton Baskin.The Believe It Or Not!® Franchise was started by Robert Leroy Ripley, world-famous cartoonist, explorer, reporter, adventurer, illustrator, collector and aficionado of the odd and unusual. Most of the exhibits in Ripley’s Believe It or Not!® museums are based on Ripley’s own collections amassed on his world travels.Proud owner of not one but several shrunken human heads, Ripley kept a 28-foot boa constrictor as a pet and let squirrels and chipmunks run around him at his drafting table while he drew. “I have traveled in 201 countries,” he once observed, “and the strangest thing I saw was man.”
  • When Britain ceded Florida back to Spain in 1784, Spanish Catholicism returned to Florida in force as well. In 1786, the Spanish crown ordered the construction of a new parish church for St. Augustine to replace the two burned to the ground by the British.The site of the Cathedral Basilica is bounded by St. George St. on the west, Treasury St. on the north and the Plaza de la Constitución to the south. The cornerstone was laid in 1793, and the church was of the Immaculate Conception.Today the Cathedral Parish continues the nearly 450-year history of the Catholic faith in St. Augustine and in the United States. The parish also serves St. Benedict the Moor Church, built in 1889 in the city’s historic Lincolnville area to care for the spiritual needs of those who had recently been freed as slaves.
  • The Old Jail has been preserved pretty much as it was while St. Johns county stilled used it. Visitors can still see where the sheriff and his wife and children lived just upstairs from the prisoners and the private kitchen where they cooked for the inmates. The Old Jail deputies will entertain you with tales of justice and punishment from when Florida was still on America's frontier.
  • One of the most comfortable and oddest streets in the Old City, St. George St. offers rank commerce inside the friendly confines of some of the oldest and most historic houses in North America. From weird little Chinese Christmas ornaments sold at Sunburst Crystal in historic Sanchez House to the Sea Shell Shop and the guy who sells fake old-timey photos, there’s something to titillate and scandalize everyone.
View the list

, Greater Jacksonville Examiner

K Truitt is a second-generation, native Floridian born in Jacksonville. Truitt worked in public higher education for 25 years, most recently in Texas, is a successful grant writer, knows newspaper publishing, printing and graphic design and wants to work in the public sector. Contact: kt...

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