While brick streets attributed to Henry Flagler are admired today, St. Augustine Historian Thomas Graham writes it was asphalt he used to pave streets around his Ponce de Leon Hotel as he and progressive colleague Dr. Andrew Anderson battled city fathers for street improvements.

From The Awakening of St. Augustine: The Anderson Family and the Oldest City 1821-1824, by St. Augustine Historian Thomas Graham, available at the St. Augustine Historical Society.

Paving the streets was a nettlesome question for both Flagler and the town government for more than a decade. Most of the town's ancient streets consisted of nature's own deep white sand which sifted over shoe tops and pulled at cartwheels.

Some roads had been covered with oyster shell, a reasonably satisfactory surface once the stinking smell of rotting oysters had passed fol­lowing the shelling of the road.

But St. George Street, Marine Street, Charlotte Street, and the streets around the plaza were famous for their disgraceful state. Mayor (John) Long described them aptly in a message to city fathers in 1886:

The Condition of Our Streets, especially St. George Street and Charlotte, is a disgrace to our City Government and a reflection upon the intelligence, public spirit and enterprise of our people. Surface water with all manner of filth is allowed to accumulate and stand in stagnant pools upon principle thor­oughfares of the city, sending forth their death breeding poisons and offensive odors apparently unnoticed by any City Officials. Side-Walks have entirely disappeared from any and every part of the City (except when constructed by private individuals) and no effort seems to be made to re-establish and maintain them. Pedestrians are thus forced through mud and slush, and indiscriminately out among horses, carriages, and vehicles of every size and description, at risk of life and limb.

Flagler set an excellent example for the city to follow by paving King Street and the streets surrounding the Ponce de Leon with asphalt at his own expense. Dr. Anderson recommended that the city continue what Flagler had begun, but the town leadership did not feel that it could afford the high cost of asphalt paving. Instead, the town began to pave some streets with less expensive cypress blocks, acting over Dr. Anderson's protest that the porous wood might absorb moisture and become a health hazard.

Part of St. George Street and the streets surrounding the Plaza were surfaced in this way, but no satisfactory solution was achieved for the pavement question. It is significant that the city was not able to solve even this problem which was so clearly recognized as a pressing public need.

Image: Sam A. Cooley, ca. 1860s