A story of unbroken history & enduring spirit by J. Michael Francis

A book presentation as part of the 450th anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine celebrations.

The St. Augustine story is a compelling narrative of exploration, innovation and enduring spirit. It is marked by many milestones: the first permanent European settlement in America; site of the first Catholic parish Mass; the first hospital; the first tavern; the first port to develop transatlantic trade; the first European town plan; its transformation into a world-class resort; and its place as an epic battleground in the movement for equality and civil rights.

Decades before Jamestown and Plymouth, St. Augustine was born when hundreds of Spanish and African colonists intertwined with Native Americans at the Indian village of Seloy. The 1565 settlement represents the very multicultural founding of America, the same diversity that characterizes us as a nation. Indeed, St.Augustine was First America.

St. Augustine is quaint and strange, in harmony with its romantic history. It has no pretensions to architectural richness or beauty; and yet it is impressive from its unlikeness to anything else in America.

—Harriet Beecher Stowe, Palmetto Leaves, 1873.

No other place in the United States can provide the post-contact time depth and unbroken continuum of Euro-American occupation that St. Augustine can.

—Kathleen Deagan, 2005.