Every American schoolchild learns the same story. The Pilgrims. Plymouth Rock. 1620. The founding of a nation rooted in the cold, rocky soil of New England. But here’s what they don’t teach you. When the Mayflower dropped anchor in Plymouth Harbor, St. Augustine, Florida was already 55 years old. Let that sink in. While the Pilgrims were learning to survive their first winter, St. Augustine had already buried generations of residents. It had weathered sieges, hurricanes, and political upheaval. It had built a fort, established a parish, and created a community so layered and complex that no single story could contain it. That’s exactly why I wrote one.
The Oldest City in America
St. Augustine was founded on September 8, 1565, by Spanish explorer Pedro Menéndez de Avilés – 42 years before the English settled Jamestown and 55 years before Plymouth. It is the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the continental United States. And in 2026, as America prepares to celebrate its 250th birthday, St. Augustine is quietly marking its 461st.
461 years of stories. Of survival. Of cultures colliding and merging and creating something entirely new on American soil.
The Spanish came first. Then the British. Then the Spanish again. The Minorcans arrived as indentured laborers and stayed to build a community whose descendants still walk St. Augustine’s streets today. Fort Mose, just north of the city, became America’s first legally sanctioned free Black settlement, decades before the Revolution that supposedly started it all.
This is not a footnote in American history. This is the first chapter.
Why I Wrote Oldest St. Augustine
I am a Florida-based travel journalist. I have spent years covering this state’s destinations, its hotels, its food, its coastlines. But St. Augustine stopped me in my tracks – not because it’s beautiful, though it is – but because every brick street, every weathered door, every quiet courtyard holds a story most Americans have never heard.
So I spent two years researching, walking, interviewing, and writing. The result is Oldest St. Augustine, published by Reedy Press in April 2026.
It is not a history textbook. It is a storyteller’s guide to America’s oldest city, written for the curious traveler, the history lover, the reader who suspects there is more to this country’s story than what fits in a standard curriculum.
There is so much more.
America’s 250th Anniversary Starts Here
As the nation turns 250 this year, the conversation about American identity, American beginnings, and American legacy has never been more relevant. St. Augustine belongs at the center of that conversation.
Before the Liberty Bell. Before Independence Hall. Before 1776.
There was 1565. There was St. Augustine.
And now, finally, there is a book that tells its story.
Oldest St. Augustine is available now. PURCHASE YOUR COPY HERE
