Published by former Mayor George Gardner February 17 2016
The Report is an independent publication serving our community
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FOY, National Cemetery
in National Register review
The Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park and St. Augustine National Cemetery on Marine Street go before the Florida National Register Review Board in Tallahassee March 23, to be considered for the National Register of Historic Places.
"The Fountain of Youth was recently listed on the National Register for the archaeological site, submitted by Dr. Kathy Deagan," City Historic Planner Jenny Wolfe says. "This nomination is for the tourist attraction."
National Cemetery
St. Augustine's National Cemetery could date from well before August 14, 1842, when "Seven wagons drawn by 'elegant' mules and each covered with an American flag carried the (remains of soldiers who died in the Seminole Indian Wars) to their final resting place."
It was a post cemetery for St. Francis Barracks, converted from the 1600s Convento de San Francisco during the city's British occupation (1763-1784).
Fountain of Youth
"It is remarkable that the (Fountain of Youth and Mission of Nombre de Dios) sites have survived at all, given their high, water-view, property value and the changes in the waterways of St. Augustine wrought by the Corps of Engineers and others over the years," Archaeologist Kathy Deagan says of the adjacent areas where St. Augustine Founder Pedro Menendez is believed to have landed and celebrated the first Mass.
The park's attraction as a tourist mecca began before Luella Day McConnell, fresh from the gold fields of the Yukon, purchased it in the early 1900s. Dr. Tom Graham, researching early film making here, writes, "The tract was then called Neptune Park (and) had long been a garden spot favored by winter visitors.
University of Florida students prepared the Fountain of Youth nomination as an historic tourist attraction.
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Pedro Menéndez is best known for founding St. Augustine, the oldest continuously occupied European city in the continental United States, but his first colonial capital was Santa Elena on Parris Island in the Port Royal Sound, established a year after St. Augustine.
Sixteen historians and archaeologists will gather April 15 at the Center for the Arts, USC Beaufort, South Carolina to discuss Santa Elena and Sixteenth-Century La Florida.
Among the presenters, St. Augustine's Kathy Deagan, Carl Halbirt and Eugene Lyon.
The one-day conference is free with registration on the website.
Read the Santa Elena story in today's History's Highlight below.
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 Memorial Servicefor Dr. Hayling
A Memorial Service will be held Saturday for St. Augustine civil right leader Dr. Robert B. Hayling, who passed away at his Fort Lauderdale home in December at the age of 86.
The 10 am service at St. Paul A.M.E. Church on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue, hosted by Reverend Ron Rawls, will be presided by former Senator Tony Hill with out-of-town speakers Rev. Andrew Young, former ambassador to the United Nations, and Dr. Frederick Humphries, retired president of Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.
A family funeral for Dr. Hayling, a dentist who led the civil rights movement in St. Augustine in the 1960s, was held in Fort Pierce, Florida on January 18 - the national Martin Luther King Holiday.
Dr. Hayling has been recognized by the city with the city's two highest honors: the de Aviles Award and the Order of La Florida, the street where he had lived being renamed in his honor, and the recent naming of Lincolnville's Riberia Pointe "Dr. Robert B. Hayling Freedom Park."
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Neighborhood Workbooks online
 The newly completed Neighborhood Zoning Workbook is now available on the city's website. It's a comprehensive "planning toolbox" for residents who want to initiate a planning process to identify, evaluate, and develop potential solutions to development pressures. There are workbooks for each of the city's organized neighborhoods as well as a General Neighborhoods workbook. To access the neighborhood list with a link to your neighborhood, click here. Prominent is the overlay concept, through which a neighborhood might overlay zoning or development restrictions for parts or all of their neighborhood.
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History's Highlight
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A one day Santa Elena Conference April 15, sponsored by the Santa Elena Foundation and the South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of South Carolina, brings together a group of eminent historians and archaeologists to share their understanding of the importance of Santa Elena in the history of Spanish Florida and the world.
 In the mid-16th century, Spain and France competed for control of North America. The Spanish government believed it had exclusive rights to the continent by the blessing of the Catholic Church, and France disagreed.
To protect its Atlantic shipping route from English and French privateers, Spain colonized points along the southeastern coast from the Caribbean to the Carolinas.
St. Augustine and Santa Elena were the first two towns established by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. He had been sent by Philip II, King of Spain, to reclaim La Florida following French intrusions at Charlesfort (Parris Island SC) in 1562 and Fort Caroline (Jacksonville) in 1564.
Once he had defeated the French colonists at Fort Caroline in 1565, he turned to establishing Spanish settlements and exploring north to Chesapeake Bay and west to New Spain.
Santa Elena was founded in 1566 on an island in the Port Royal Sound of present-day South Carolina. Two years later, 225 settlers - including farmers, Catholic missionaries, and families - arrived in Florida from Spain and supplemented the garrisons at St. Augustine and Santa Elena.
Menéndez's city government at Santa Elena issued land for the immigrants, and by 1569, there were 40 houses around the central plaza.
In 1571 it became the capital of Spanish La Florida and the home of Pedro Menéndez and his family.
Santa Elena's Spanish leadership struggled to keep the coastal village working. The soil on the island could not support the farming needed to feed everyone, so there were food shortages. The Spanish were not on friendly terms with the Orista and Guale tribes in the region, so the colonial farmers could not expand their farms beyond the fort's protection.
After a ten year occupation, Santa Elena was abandoned for a year due to Indian attack. Soon after the abandonment, a French ship, Le Prince, wrecked at the entrance to Port Royal Sound.
Upon learning of this new French intrusion, the new Governor of Florida reestablished Santa Elena in 1577 and tracked down the Frenchmen who were dispersed among the local Indian towns.
Santa Elena was then occupied until 1587 when it was again abandoned and never reoccupied.
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The St. Augustine Report is published weekly, with additional Reports previewing City Commission meetings as well as Special Reports. The Report is written and distributed by George Gardner, St. Augustine Mayor (2002-2006) and a former newspaper reporter and editor. Contact the Report at gardner@aug.com or gardnerstaug@yahoo.com
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