Exploring St. Augustine, Florida

Last updated: January 1, 2023

As part of a road trip to Florida with my mom, we stopped and spent an entire day in St. Augustine and I’m honestly a little perplexed as to why I didn’t know about this very interesting city! One could easily spend two or three days exploring this area. We visited Castillo de San Marcos, and the the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. Below, you’ll see the St. Augustine Lighthouse (so cute!), Fort Matanzas National Monument, and Downtown St. Augustine (which has America’s oldest wooden schoolhouse!).

St. Augustine is the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the contiguous United States. It is the second-oldest continuously inhabited city of European origin in United States territory after San Juan, Puerto Rico (founded in 1521).

St. Augustine Lighthouse

The St. Augustine Light Station is a privately maintained aid to navigation and an active, working lighthouse. The original lighthouse was built in 1737. It was first lit officially by the American government in May 1824 as Florida’s first lighthouse. In 1970, it suffered a devastating fire by the hands of an unknown arsonist and in 1980, a small group of 15 women in the Junior Service League of St. Augustine (JSL) signed a 99-year lease with the county for the keeper’s house and surrounding grounds and began a massive restoration project.

Today, the St. Augustine Light Station consists of the 165-foot 1874 tower, the 1876 Keepers’ House, two summer kitchens added in 1886, a 1941 U.S. Coast Guard barracks and a 1936 garage that was home to a jeep repair facility during World War II.

In 1981, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historical Places.

To date, this is the prettiest lighthouse I’ve visited! The black and white striped body with the red roof really make this one of a kind. I climbed to the top and enjoyed the tidbits of information and history they had displayed at each landing.

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Interestingly, this lighthouse was featured as one of the haunted locations on the paranormal TV series Most Terrifying Places in America on an episode titled “Restless Dead”, which aired on the Travel Channel in 2018. The St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum offers tickets for a number of “Dark of the Moon” ghost tours and ghost-themed private events to the public.

If you find yourself in St, Augustine, this really is a unique lighthouse to visit.

Fort Matanzas National Monument

Fort Matanzas National Monument was designated a United States National Monument on October 15, 1924. The monument consists of a 1740 Spanish fort called Fort Matanzas, and about 100 acres of salt marsh and barrier islands along the Matanzas River. It was built by the Spanish in 1742 to guard Matanzas Inlet, the southern mouth of the Matanzas River, which could be used as a rear entrance to the city of St. Augustine.

In 1916, the U.S Department of War began a major restoration of the badly deteriorated fort. By 1924, three vertical fissures in the wall were repaired and the structure was stabilized; in the same year, National Monument status was proclaimed. Fort Matanzas was transferred from the War Department to the National Park Service on August 10, 1933. As a historic area under the Park Service, the National Monument was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966.

At the visitor center, you can sign up to take a five-minute boat ride to the historic Fort Matanzas, which is located across Matanzas Inlet on Rattlesnake Island. As luck would have it, we barely missed the last boat. I blame myself for not researching beforehand because I didn’t even know there was a boat to catch or I would have planned better. Regardless, you could see fort from the dock and the visitor grounds were beautiful with these massive trees.

Downtown St. Augustine

Walking the streets of St. Augustine offered an insight to Americas oldest city, including America’s oldest wooden schoolhouse!

This wooden structure located at 14 St. George Street in St. Augustine, Florida near the city gate. It is touted as being the oldest wooden school building in the United States. The exact date of construction is unknown, but it first appears on tax records in 1716. There are no wooden buildings in St. Augustine built prior to 1702 when the British burned the city. While researching, I found this was not the oldest schoolhouse; just the oldest wooden schoolhouse. The oldest schoolhouse still standing in the United States is the Voorlezer’s House built prior to 1696 and located in Historic Richmondtown in Staten Island, New York.

The schoolmaster and family lived on the second floor above the classroom and the kitchen was located in a separate building to reduce heat and threat of fire. The building originally belonged to Juan Genoply. The classroom was one of the first in the US to be co-ed, educating both boys and girls since 1788.

You can take a tour of the schoolhouse for a small entry fee which I did not pay since I’m a notorious penny pincher.

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Cathedral Basilica

Last but not least, we visited the parish of St. Augustine, which dates from the celebration of a mass on September 8, 1565 and is the oldest Catholic parish within the present day United States. During Queen Anne’s War, the English Governor of South Carolina, James Moore, raided St. Augustine and destroyed an earlier church. Plagued by financial difficulties, the parish was unable to construct a new church until 1793. Completed in 1797, it became a cathedral in 1870. In 1887, fire severely damaged the cathedral, but the facade and walls remained standing and were preserved when the building was restored in 1887-1888. Further restoration was carried out in 1965.

It was designated a U.S. National Historic Landmark on April 15, 1970. Its congregation, established in 1565, is the oldest religious congregation in the contiguous United States.

And that, my friends, concludes my visit to St. Augustine. I believed all Americans should visit at least once given the history. I personally found it quite fascinating and would love for you to share more recommendations for Florida (although I feel like I’m getting quite familiar with the state!).