Page 15 - October 2016

“ THE FRONT OF THE PARK COMMEMORATES THE LANDING OF PONCE DE LEON OVER 500 YEARS AGO. IT IS ALSO A PERFECT EXAMPLE OF A ROADSIDE ATTRACTION
T MOUSE THAT ATE FLORIDA.
something for everyone. So, starting in 1513 with Ponce de Leon’s discovery of an artesian spring thought to bring eternal youth, here is a rundown of the park’s history:
“The place was relatively untrammeled until September of 1565 when Pedro Menendez de Aviles came ashore here on a military mission,” says Keating of the post-Ponce de Leon days. “He was tasked by the king to destroy the French, who had set up shop about 40 miles north at Fort Caroline.”
In 1587, Fountain of Youth became the
site for the first mission church built by the Franciscans. Today, Mission of Nombre de Dios has been reconstructed using local cypress, which was known to 16th century Spaniards to be durable and resistant to wood-eating insects.
Over the next few hundred years, the park was largely uninhabited
or used for agricultural purposes. That is until 1868 when English florist H.H. Williams purchased the property and used it for the commercial cultivation
of fruits and flowers.
ABOVE:
WALTER B. FRASER
LEFT:
ORIGINAL GUESTBOOK
spring was free flowing as it had flowed for thousands of years,” Keating explains. ““A seismological event had collapsed the spring to a
still pond, so Williams welled it in to be able
to water his lilies, irises and tropicals.”
In 1868, Williams opened the area to the public, but it didn’t become a real, bonafide
tourist attraction until the early 1900s when Dr. Luella Day McConnell (aka Diamond Lil) purchased the land adjacent to the Matanzas Inlet and was instrumental in tirelessly promoting the area as the landing spot of Ponce de Leon in 1513.
McConnell claimed to have found a coquina cross in her garden measuring 15 stones tall and 13 stones wide with a silver salt cellar underneath containing a parchment paper authenticating Ponce de Leon’s landing. The parchment has been authenticated twice to be a vellum from between 1280 - 1420 AD, with writing dating to between 1500 - 1530 AD.
THAT PRE-DATES THE GIAN“
“The artesian
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