Oldest Store Museum returns

   Turn of the century Hamblen store opens at Old Jail

  St. Augustine Historical Society Librarian Charles Tingley's wish came true, that the Oldest Store Museum inventory wouldn't be dispersed when its Artillery Lane location was sold.

   Many will remember the vast Oldest Store Museum on Artillery Lane, a massive ¾-acre store that featured everything from tonics & elixirs to a goat powered washing machine.

   The collection disappeared when the building was rehabbed to condominiums, but it never left town.

   Historic Tours of America bought the entire collection, "Over 100,000 Essential Items!" its website promises, and with it a fascinating slice of St. Augustine history.

   The Oldest Store Museum will officially open July 12 in the former Herbie Wiles Insurance building, moved to the Old Jail complex years ago. But tours are already being conducted at $9 adult and $5 child.

   Federal Commission meets here July 18

   The federal St. Augustine 450th Commemoration Commission holds its inaugural meeting July 18 at Flagler College Auditorium to organize plans to assist in St. Augustine's 450th commemoration.

   Details on the commission and its members here.

 450th Improvement Club

Everyone can be a part of the 450th by joining the 450th Improvement Club.

Planning improvements inside and outside your home or business?  Complete a Certification of Participation found here or at the city's Planning and Building Department 825.1065.

   Any improvements count, like remodeling, landscaping, painting - whether it's public space or your own property.

   Responding to plans for a review of tour guide licensing procedures by a 450 Community Corps committee, a local tour guide "at it for ten years here in St. Augustine" emailed, "I've lived in Key West and I also worked there as a tour guide and I know that there was a lot of mythology bantered about -- mostly about Hemingway -- and I'm sure that is the case here, also.

    "Tour guides are also entertainers and they might be a little loose with the facts sometimes. If they just spewed out a bunch of facts in a boring manner they would not be very effective."

Food, ship top voting

   Folks want to travel on their stomachs, by ship, and are willing to pay for it.

   That's one way to consider the top vote-getters to date from the 450 Community Corps Idea Vault.

   A period food festival, replica 16th century ship, and U. S. Commemorative Stamps and Coins rank highest, followed by a Bayfront bandshell, recreation of the Cross and Sword play, Spanish Quarter Open Air Market, and the Clothes Closet - period dress for rent and sale.

   Other high-ranking ideas for the 450th include Historic District Parade, Lincolnville, St. Augustine paper currency and coins, Tour Guide Training, and a 16th Century Village.

   More than 50 ideas are listed in the Idea Vault, with many more as the focus grows for the commemoration. Cast your vote at the Idea Vault. 

   Ten years after the Civil War, the warm climate of Florida was beginning to attract people trying to recover their health or merely seeking a pleasant vacation.

   With some 50 stores of all types holding city licenses, the issuance to C.F. Hamblen was hardly noticed. But over the next three decades, the C.F. Hamblen Company would grow to be the largest merchant in St. Augustine, recognized throughout Florida.

   The arrival of Henry Flagler in 1885 surely played a role in that prosperity. In the early 1890s, C.F. Hamblen was handling building, automotive, and marine supplies, with sidelines in harnesses and saddlery, feed end grain, and coal and other types of fuel. He attached his name to items custom made for his business.

   His S.S. City of St. Augustine steamship transported goods from New York to points all along Florida's east coast, following Flagler's trail of resort development as far south as the Keys and west to Nassau.

   In Webb's St. Augustine Directory of 1886 the business was listed on King Street facing the Plaza. In April, 1887, a major fire destroyed much of the city north of the Plaza. Hamblen's store was spared. However, his good fortune was short lived. On December 15 another fire completely destroyed the Hamblen Store and stock, valued at $40,000.

   Undaunted, Hamblen built a much larger store and warehouse at 11-13 Hospital (now Aviles) Street, until its final move to Artillery lane after World War One.

   C.F. Hamblen died in 1920, but the name and business continues to this day in Hamblen Hardware on King Street, which proudly displays C.F.'s picture in the window and articles, advertisements, and items, including a wheelbarrow, in the store.

   Fred Green purchased the Artillery Lane warehouse and opened the Oldest Store Museum. It was eventually sold it to Carlton and Mildred Miller, and then to Historic Tours of America.

   John H. Van Gorden, in his study prepared for Green in 1961, wrote:

   "The importance of St. Augustine lies not so much in the fact that it is 400 years old, but rather that it has had 400 years of continuous history. In such a history reminders of every period of that history are important, not just those that are associated with the oldest period.

   "The C. F. Hamblen Company has played a part in the last 86 years of that continuous history. As such it has had a significant role in over 20 percent of the years of St. Augustine's total history.  

   "Outside of the churches and the governmental agencies involved, there are few surviving institutions in the city that can claim such an important role in the history at St. Augustine." 

Image: C.F. Hamblen video painting in Oldest Store Museum at Old Jail