Flagler era[edit]
Henry Flagler, a partner with John D. Rockefeller in Standard Oil, arrived in St. Augustine in the 1880s. He was the driving force behind turning the city into a winter resort for the wealthy northern elite.[88] Flagler bought a number of local railroads and incorporated them into the Florida East Coast Railway; it built its headquarters in St. Augustine.[89]
Flagler commissioned the New York architectural firm of Carrère and Hastings to design a number of extravagant buildings in St. Augustine, among them the Ponce de Leon Hotel and the Alcazar Hotel.[90] He built the latter partly on land purchased from his friend and associate Andrew Anderson and partly on the bed of Maria Sanchez Creek,[91]which Flagler had filled with the archaeological remains of the original Fort Mose.[92][93] Flagler built or contributed to several churches, including Grace Methodist, Ancient City Baptist, and, most ornate, the Venetian-style Memorial Presbyterian Church.[94]
Flagler commissioned Albert Spalding to design a baseball park in St. Augustine,[95] and in the 1880s, the waiters at his hotels, under the leadership of headwaiter Frank P. Thompson,[96][97] formed one of America's pioneer professional Negro League baseball teams, the Ponce de Leon Giants.[98] Members of the New York African-American professional team, the Cuban Giants, wintered in St. Augustine, where they played for the Ponce de Leon Giants.[95][99] These included Frank Grant, who in 2006 was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.[100]
In the 1880s, no public hospital was operated between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. On May 22, 1888, Flagler invited the most influential women of St. Augustine to a meeting where he offered them a hospital if the community would commit to operate and maintain the facility. The Alicia Hospital opened March 1, 1890, as a not-for-profit institution; it was renamed Flagler Hospitalin his honor in 1905.[101][102]
The St. Augustine Alligator Farm, founded in 1893,[103][104] is one of the oldest commercial tourist attractions in Florida, as is the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park, which has been a tourist attraction since around 1902.[105] The city is the eastern terminus of the Old Spanish Trail, a promotional effort of the 1920s linking St. Augustine to San Diego, California, with 3,000 miles (4,800 km) of roadways.[106][107]
The Florida land boom of the 1920s left its mark on St. Augustine with the residential development (though not completion) of Davis Shores, a landfill project of the developer D.P. Davis on the marshy north end ofAnastasia Island.[108] It was promoted as "America's Foremost Watering Place", and could be reached from downtown St. Augustine by the Bridge of Lions, billed as "The Most Beautiful Bridge in Dixie".[109]
During World War II, St. Augustine hotels were used as sites for training Coast Guardsmen,[110] including the artist Jacob Lawrence[111] and actor Buddy Ebsen.[112] It was a popular place for R&R for soldiers from nearby Camp Blanding, including Andy Rooney[113] and Sloan Wilson. Wilson later wrote the novel The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, which became a classic of the 1950s.[114]
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