St. Augustine, Florida - Part Five

This is a view of the artillery platform at Fort Matanzas near St. Augustine.

This unique old fort was built during the 1740s and is now a national monument. Visitors who take the boat out to the fort are able to spend about an hour touring the structure. This is plenty of time because the fort is only about 50 by 50 feet.

Fort Matanzas was built quickly and, unfortunately, using a faulty plan. The weight of the structure produces too much strain for its design and by the 1800s it had severely cracked. It was restored when it became a national park, but the work of keeping it standing is constant.

According to an interpreter at the fort, the structure was considered so worthless at the time Florida was ceded from Spain to the United States that it was valued at only 1 cent. It is certainly worth far more than that today. The land itself is worth millions and the fort is a priceless historical treasure.

To read more about Fort Matanzas and other sites around St. Augustine, please visit http://www.exploresouthernhistory.com/ and look for the St. Augustine heading.

St. Augustine, Florida - Part Four

This unique structure about 15 miles south of St. Augustine is historic Fort Matanzas.

Built by the Spanish during the 1740s to guard the southern approaches to the ancient city, it is now a national monument.

Built of coquina stone, a unique rock found in only three places in the world (one of which is the St. Augustine area), the fort was normally garrisoned by only a handful of men, but mounted five pieces of artillery that could control nearby Matanzas Inlet, one of the water approaches to St. Augustine.

The fort fired in anger only once, in 1742, when a British fleet commanded by Gov. James Oglethorpe of Georgia approached the inlet. Oglethorpe and his men rowed into the inlet in small boats and the Spanish in the fort fired a single shot at them. It may have been history's shortest battle. Realizing that the Spanish guns could control the waterway, Oglethorpe and his soldiers turned back and no other shots were fired.

The fort is accessible only by a passenger ferry that leaves once each hour from the visitor center off Highway A1A. For more information, please visit www.exploresouthernhistory.com and look for the St. Augustine heading. You will find a link there for Fort Matanzas.

Fort Matanzas - St. Augustine, Florida

Fort Matanzas National Monument, located 15 miles south of St. Augustine, Florida, preserves a restored Spanish fort built in 1740-1742.

Incorporating some of the most historic ground in Florida, the national monument also interprets the history of a 1565 massacre of French shipwreck survivors by Spanish soldiers.

Our new Fort Matanzas page is now online at our new St. Augustine, Florida section on www.exploresouthernhistory.com!

We will be expanding our St. Augustine section with additional historic sites in the city over the next few days, so be sure to check back in for updates. Thank you to the National Park Service for this photograph of Fort Matanzas.