The St. Augustine of 1875, to which C.F. Hamblen came, was a city crowded with Northerners like himself. 
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 April, 1887, a major fire destroyed much of the city north of the Plaza. Hamblen's store on King Street facing the Plaza was spared, but on December 15 another fire completely destroyed the Hamblen store and stock.
Undaunted, Hamblen built a much larger store and warehouse at 11-13 Hospital (now Aviles) Street, then moved to Artillery lane after World War One.
C.F. Hamblen died in 1920, but the name and business continued in Hamblen Hardware on King Street.
Fred Green purchased the Artillery Lane warehouse and opened the Oldest Store Museum. That inventory was eventually sold to Historic Tours of America, which now presents the Oldest Store Museum Experience at the Old Jail complex.
In his 1961 study, Van Gorden 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 had a significant role in over 20 percent of the years of St. Augustine's total history."
Image: C.F. Hamblen video painting in Oldest Store Museum Experience at the Old Jail Complex.
Nombre de Dios and Fountain of Youth Park for evidence of St. Augustine's first settlement, will pull together her notes Tuesday for the second program in the current First America! Series.