Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park
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The famous Fountain of Youth in Saint Augustine, FL is renowned for being the place where Ponce de Leon found the curative waters that mysteriously restore your youth. The 15-acre Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park contains numerous museums, historical sites, and the spring that was believed to be the Fountain of Youth.
History of Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park
The Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park is located in St. Augustine, Florida. It is a memorial to the location where Ponce de León is said to have landed. The land was frequently used as a tourist destination as early as the 1860s. Luella Day McConnell built the tourist destination in its current form in 1904. During the 1890s Klondike gold rush, she left her Chicago medical practice and traveled to the Yukon, where she bought the Park property from British horticulturist Henry H. Williams in 1904. For this reason, she earned the nickname "Diamond Lil" in St. Augustine.
She started marketing the site around 1909, charging a fee for entry and selling postcards and water from a well that Philip Gomez and Philip Capo had excavated for Williams in 1875. McConnell later asserted that he had found a large cross built of coquina rock on the property and that Ponce de León himself had set it there.
The site was later purchased by Georgia native Walter B. Fraser, who had previously managed McConnell's attraction and turned it into one of the most popular tourist destinations in the region.
The Smithsonian Institution carried out the initial excavations at the Fountain of Youth in 1934. These excavations turned up several Christianized Timucua graves. These graves ultimately led researchers to conclude that the Park was the site of the first American Christian mission. The Franciscan friars founded this mission, known as the Mission Nombre de Dios, in 1587. It was the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in North America. St. Augustine was founded there in 1565 by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. Over the course of the following decades, artifacts have been discovered that positively identify the Park as the site of that settlement. Artifacts from the native and colonial periods are currently on display at the park to honor Ponce de León and Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, who founded St. Augustine. There are also displays of Timucuan and Spanish origin.
Exhibits of Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park
Discovery Globe
This giant, 30-foot-tall globe depicts explorers' paths to and from the New World, the extent of the lands of La Florida, the new Universities created in the Americas, and the colonies and cities they founded, starting with Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492.
Navigator’s Planetarium
Using navigational instruments of the day, such as the astrolabe and the quadrant, the early Spanish and Portuguese explorers of the 1400s and 1500s braved vast expanses of the world's oceans. These methods are on display in a captivating hourly presentation at the Navigators' Planetarium.
Timucua Indian Exhibit
A big, historically accurate Timucuan family home called an anoti and a unique meeting place called a nihi paha were added to the park in 2013. The Timucua are no longer here, yet their memory lives on. You will learn about the burial of a domestic dog that was dated 1,000 years ago that was found in the Park while also getting to know about the earliest inhabitants of the area and their culture.
Spanish cannons
20 artillery pieces were carried by Pedro Menedez de Aviles when he arrived in Florida on September 8, 1565, to defend the young colony. In this exhibit, there are hourly demonstrations using a replica of one of these six-pounder cannons in the founding of St. Augustine.
Native Christian Burial Ground Exhibit
Mr. Walter Fraser planted some citrus trees in the southern section of the land a few years after buying Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth in 1927. While planting orange trees in 1934, a gardener came across a skeleton. After calling the police, it was easily determined that the bones belonged to an indigenous Native American.
The Smithsonian Institute conducted an additional investigation and discovered that the region was completely covered with the graves of the country's earliest Native American Christians. According to some calculations, there have been around 4,000 burials. The location of the 1587 Franciscan Mission of Nombre de Dios, the First Christian Mission in the United States, was discovered by the pattern of burials more than 40 years later, right in Ponce de Leon's Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park!
Conclusion
The Fountain of Youth is a fountain that, according to legend, can make anyone younger by bathing or drinking from its waters. For thousands of years, people worldwide have told stories of a fountain like this. And although no actual proof that the site in St. Augustine is that fountain, it has been maintained as such for over a century. Meanwhile, there are countless stories, anecdotes, and legends of Ponce de Leon and others coming to that place and enjoying the fountain that it was believed would rejuvenate any who partook of its healing waters.
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