Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park in St. Johns County, Florida

Photograph: St Aug FoY entr01.jpg by Ebyabe · CC BY-SA 3.0 · Cropped to the 1200x750 attraction-card frame and converted to WebP by 1stFlorida.com. Opened and checked against the place before installation.

St. Johns County attraction

Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park

St. Johns County · Atlantic Coast

Fifteen acres on Hospital Creek holding a genuine archaeological site and a tourist legend that has been running since the 1860s.

QUESTIONS THAT NAME THIS PLACE

What Is the Oldest City in Florida?

ABOUT THIS PLACE

Two things are true about this place at once, and the park is worth visiting because of both. The legend is that Ponce de Leon landed here in 1513 and found a spring. No evidence supports it, and the historian Douglas Peck has argued the landing was nearer Melbourne Beach. Small attractions have traded on the story here since the 1860s, and Luella Day McConnell, known as Diamond Lil, expanded the site in 1904 and invented a good deal of what visitors were told until her death in 1927. Walter B. Fraser bought it that year and became a force in the city's preservation movement. The other truth is the archaeology. Excavations led by Dr. Kathleen Deagan in the 1990s found the remains of the first Spanish settlement of St. Augustine and its fortifications on this ground, along with the Timucua village that stood here. It went on the National Register on June 13, 2016. Peacocks roam the grounds

GETTING THERE

Get Directions ↗Official Website ↗

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