What makes St. Augustine FL so unique?

My family went to Florida just before the Christmas holidays. I always like to include a historical or nature tour whenever I visit a new place. So, I included in our itinerary an airboat tour of Lake Tohopekaliga to see alligators basking in the sun and a visit to Cape Canaveral for a taste of space flight history. A trip to St. Augustine was perfect for our Florida visit's historical aspect. We took the hop-on, hop-off tram tour (but stayed on it for the duration of the tour) to get a quick tour of the city and learn about its history.

It claims to be the oldest city in the USA.

The city was founded in 1565 by Pedro Ménendez de Avilés and served as the capital of Spanish Florida. The European settlement in this city was part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. Since then, St. Augustine has been continuously inhabited, making it the oldest European-established city in the contiguous United States. It is much older, of course, as Timucuan tribes were known to inhabit this part of Florida before the arrival of Spanish expeditions.

As a side note, I find it fascinating that while de Avilés was establishing the Spanish Empire's presence on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, Miguel López de Legazpi had arrived in the Philippines, befriending various datus and claiming the territory under the Viceroyalty of New Spain.

It has the narrowest street in the USA.

St. Augustine has a thoroughfare called Treasury Street. As the name implies, this street connected the Royal Spanish Treasury with the port. It's very narrow (around seven feet); two people may walk side-by-side to carry chests of gold from the port to the treasury, but a carriage pulled by horses couldn't fit it. This design was supposed to prevent thieves and pirates from robbing the Spanish government.

Seeing this street during the hop-on hop-off trolley tour reminded me of Hormiga Street in Binondo, Manila. As a child, I remarked to Daddy how narrow this street was (maybe the same width as Treasury Street). How could vehicles possibly pass through such a narrow eskenita? Daddy said this road used to be a busy thoroughfare for people on horseback and foot.

Juan Ponce de León's Fountain of Youth is found there.

The Fountain of Youth is a mythical spring whose water can restore the youth of a person who drinks it or bathes in the spring. Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León supposedly searched for it in St. Augustine, according to historical text peppered with speculations from the authors. Archeological excavations found no evidence of restorative waters; these dig sites yielded artefacts from Christianised Timucua burials and the first European settlement. The location eventually became a tourist spot. However, we did not enter it because it was closed when our tour made a top there.

The only surviving Constitution Monument is standing there.

In 1812, the Spanish government drafted its first constitution. It decreed that all towns throughout the empire should have a monument commemorating the constitution and rename their main plazas La Plaza de la Constitución. However, the Spanish monarchy took over the government soon after and decreed that all these constitutional monuments be destroyed. This monument is claimed to be the last one standing because the officials in St. Augustine refused to tear it down.

I don't know if Manila had its own La Plaza de la Constitución. The Philippines was in the remotest part of the Spanish Empire, and I speculate that news from Spain had taken at least a year to reach the colony. The monarchy would have overtaken the government and repealed the constitution by then. Nevertheless, the Constitution of 1812 had a significant impact on the colony in the middle of nowhere because it said:

"... Citizens are all those Spaniards who, through both lines, trace their origin to the Spanish dominions of either of the two hemispheres, and are settled in any town of these Islands, whether Indian, or white, European or American, mestizo, or the children of both, who are natural, provided that they are legitimised in the sense of the Law..."

This constitution decreed that Filipinos were Spanish citizens, empowering them to challenge the rules made by the officials designed to keep the Indios under their control. I think this was the beginning of the end of Spanish rule in the Philippines because the Philippine Revolution occurred just a few decades later.

Three million light bulbs light up the city during the Christmas season.

If Deacon Dave's Casa del Pomba had over 900,000 lights, St. Augustine had over 3,000,000! The annual winter event began in the 1990s, tracing its roots to the Spanish Christmas tradition of lighting white candles and placing these by the window.

The buildings were bright and welcoming during our visit, making St. Augustine a lovely sight on a cold evening. We enjoyed seeing the buildings glowing against the indigo sky, particularly while on the other side of the Bridge of Lions (we went to Anastasia Island).

The photo taken while we were at a red light did not do justice to the beauty of St. Augustine during the Nights of Lights. However, it does show how bright the city was.