FLORIDA PLACE TO EXPLORE
Castillo de San Marcos
St. Johns County · Atlantic Coast
The oldest masonry fort in the continental United States, built by Spain between 1672 and 1695 out of coquina shellstone.
ABOUT THIS PLACE
Spain began the Castillo in 1672 and finished it in 1695, after wooden forts had burned or rotted through a century of trying. The material is coquina, a soft stone of shells bonded together, quarried at King's Quarry on Anastasia Island and ferried across Matanzas Bay. That choice decided everything. Coquina absorbs a cannonball instead of shattering, and the shot sinks into the wall and stops. In 1702 James Moore of Carolina besieged the town for two months with 1,500 people sheltering inside the fort, and the walls held until a Spanish fleet arrived from Havana and he burned his ships and left. In 1740 James Oglethorpe of Georgia tried again, gave up after 27 days when his guns did nothing, and attempted a blockade instead. The fort never fell to attack. It changed hands five times by treaty, between Spain, Britain and the United States. As Fort Marion it held prisoners, among them Osceola and later Native people brought from the western plains. It became a National Monument in 1924
Keep comparing