Spanish towers and steeples; red-capped roofs; and low, overhanging balconies are reminders of St. Augustine's four centuries of history, which began on September 8, 1565, when Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles dropped anchor and rowed ashore. As a symbol of the cultural ties between the United States and Latin nations, and in an effort to establish a Latino counterpart to Williamsburg, Virginia, St. Augustine (the oldest permanent settlement in the United States) has been restoring important historic areas to their former Spanish charm.

St. Augustine was under a Spanish flag longer than it has been under the Stars and Stripes and has possibly retained more of the languid flavor of a Spanish colony than any other city in the United States. Mellowed by time and the sun, the city's Spanish Renaissance architecture continues to overshadow both 19th-century gingerbread and 20th-century neon and plate glass. Old walled gardens, narrow streets, the plaza, and horse-drawn surreys all conspire to maintain St. Augustine's old-world mood.

Ponce de Leon and his men are believed to have landed in the vicinity of what is now St. Augustine in 1513 to fill their casks with water from a local spring. However, the formal history of Spanish settlement began some 50 years later when Menendez arrived, launching St. Augustine on a history often marked by bloody violence. Following orders, Menendez wiped out the French Huguenot settlement at Fort Caroline, using such violent thoroughness that the River of Dolphins became known as the Matanzas--the Spanish word for "slaughters." To protect this strategic outpost, the Spanish built Castillo de San Marcos, a massive gray fortress that still dominates the town today. Through the centuries St. Augustine has been attacked, counterattacked, pillaged, burned, betrayed, and defended. The Spanish, British, Confederate, and US flags all flew over the city.

St. Augustine began its more recent history as a fashionable resort when, in the 1880s, Henry Morrison Flagler, the omnipresent personality in Florida history, built two large hotels here and made the city the headquarters of the Florida East Coast Railroad. St. Augustine occupies a peninsula with the Matanzas and North rivers on the east and south and the San Sebastian on the west. Still the headquarters for the Florida East Coast Railroad, the city's industries--other than tourism--include food and seafood processing, farming, boat building, printing, bookbinding, and aircraft manufacturing.