Florida August Road Trip - Post #2
To be completely transparent, while I did briefly drive through St. Augustine on this trip I did not stop at the Castillo de San Marcos this time - I wanted to spend more time driving the A1A Scenic Coastal Byway (also known as the Jimmy Buffett Mem Hwy) and stopping at a couple of beaches to wade in the sand before the seasonal monsoon came in. But I have visited the Castillo de San Marcos NM several times before and featured it as part of my Spanish colonial society unit with 7th graders each year, so I thought this would be a great opportunity to feature it to you . . .
Part One - Significance of St. Augustine and the Castillo de San Marcos:
I'd be surprised if most history teachers aren't familiar with this story, but that doesn't always mean it makes it into the curriculum in the same way Jamestown and Plymouth do. St. Augustine, Florida is the oldest city in the United States - over 40 years older than Jamestown (which, of course, is not a city today anyway), 55 years older than Plymouth, and 65 years older than Boston, Massachusetts (which is the answer often given when people are asked). St. Augustine was founded by Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles, an explorer from Spain, on the east coast of Florida in 1565. It then served as the capital of Spanish settlements in Florida for the next 200 years (until the English took over Florida after the French and Indian War).
The Castillo de San Marcos obviously doesn't date from the founding of the city - it took 23 years to complete the main part of the fort once it was begun in 1672! But it is one of the oldest buildings still standing in North America, and housed forces from Spain, England, and the United States at various points in its' history. It is also unique because of its construction material - mostly made of coquina, a limestone kind of rock that is actually made up of compressed sea shells and originally was mined in the King’s Quarry on Anastasia Island. While the Spanish were simply using what was available to them, they were delighted to discover that coquina simply absorbed the impact of cannon balls instead of shattering like regular stone. When mined, coquina is soft and can easily be shaped into blocks. It starts out gold or light brown in color when mined, but over many years it turns the dull grey you see when looking at the Castillo or Fort Matanzas today.
Below are a few pictures of the Castillo de San Marcos (with St. Augustine in the background on the first one), as well as a couple of short (2 min each) videos from the National Park Service on the history of the fort and its construction:
Part Two - More details on the fort from the National Park Service:
As you probably know by now, one of the things I love to do is identify resources overlooked by teachers and other educators, and simply bring them to the forefront of attention in a blog post. One of the best sources for those tends to be the National Park Service - like most government agencies, they produce a lot of good historical content BUT that content then settles into infrequently-visited portions of their website(s). Nothing has changed about the quality of the resource - it just becomes harder to find as newer material migrates to the top of the blog (or search engine results).
I used a couple of short video clips above, but park rangers are always creating new content on specific aspects of their "baby" (after all, who knows the site better than the people who maintain it and present on it every day). Below, for example, is a great 15-min video on the use of armaments and castle defenses to depict what the Spanish would have intended the Castillo de San Marcos to be used for - protection of the settlers as well as the routes of their galleons.
Resources and Links Mentioned Above:
Castillo de San Marcos National Historic Site, National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/casa/index.htm
YouTube channel for the Castillo de San Marcos and Fort Matanzas National Historic Sites, National Park Service, https://www.youtube.com/@CastilloNPS/videos
"The Founding of Castillo de San Marcos", National Park Service, Oct 2018, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/the-founding-of-castillo-de-san-marcos.htm
"Coquina - The Rock that Saved St Augustine", National Park Service, Mar 2018, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/coquina-the-rock-that-saved-st-augustine.htm
"Architecture & Construction (of the Castillo de San Marcos)", National Park Service, Aug 2025, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/construction.htm
"Castillo de San Marcos: A Long Legacy - An Effective Defense" (video), National Park Service, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9KnEcbq6JM
"Spanish Colonial Culture", National Park Service, Apr 2022, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/spanish-colonial-culture.htm
"African Americans in St. Augustine 1565-1821" (story and embedded video), National Park Service, Oct 2023, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/historyculture/african-americans-in-st-augustine-1565-1821.htm
"Why Slaves Escaped to Florida for Asylum" (embedded video), from the series Secrets of the Dead by PBS, Dec 2017, https://www.pbs.org/video/why-slaves-escaped-florida-asylum-8x4lbq/
"Black History: The Underground Railroad's Route in Florida", VisitFlorida.com, 2026, https://www.visitflorida.com/travel-ideas/articles/arts-history-underground-railroad-in-florida/
"In Florida, the Underground Railroad Ran South (It traveled on the historic Old Kings Road)", Flagler County Historical Society, Mar 2020, https://flaglercountyhistoricalsociety.com/in-florida-the-underground-railroad-ran-south/
Virtual Field Trip of the Castillo de San Marcos (hosted by the University of South Florida), https://arcweb.forest.usf.edu/dhhc/NPS-CASA/CASA-4thGrade/
"Teachers Resources: Spanish Colonial St. Augustine" (collection of primary source materials and produced videos), University of Florida, https://ufdc.ufl.edu/collections/TEACHERS/results?sort=title
"Castillo de San Marcos Lesson Plans", National Park Service, https://www.nps.gov/casa/learn/education/classrooms/curriculummaterials.htm
AND it is also helpful to learn about other aspects of a location or historic site beyond the obvious. For example, did you know that the first "Underground Railroad" did not lead north to freedom . . . but SOUTH? And that it started 100 years before the Declaration of Independence?
Part Three - Education Lesson Plans/Resources:
I'm not going to feature a lot here (just point you in the right direction and link you to the resources) but will mention a couple. Particularly for most of you not within easy driving distance to St. Augustine (or not up for a field trip), I wanted to point out the virtual guided tour hosted by the University of South Florida . . .
Two other sources I will link below:
The National Park Service has about 15 different lesson plans on their website, though several of them are looking at specific historical time periods or aspects of the bigger story (like escaped slaves, for example);
The University of Florida maintains a digital repository of primary source material from St. Augustine, along with videos they have produced over the years to explain/describe those resources to students/visitors.
Another valuable resource are short articles written about specific aspects of (in this case) a National Historic Site. Below are some visual examples of topics available on NPS's Castillo de San Marcos site - you just have to look for them (actually, YOU don't have to - the links are provided below!)
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