The Saint Augustine Fire destroyed every structure in Saint Augustine, Florida north of the Plaza from Saint George Street to the Bay on the morning of April 2, 1914. The fire claimed six hotels, the opera house, the courthouse, and countless homes and businesses. [1]
The fire began in the kitchen boiler room of Florida House on Treasury Street before daybreak. It was first reported by a patrolman named S A McCormick who saw flames from a second floor window while walking his late night beat shortly after 1:00am. The Florida House was engulfed before help arrived. Fire fighters first worked to rescue guests at the Florida, many of whom were carried down ladders. The local fire department could do no more than contain the fire and summoned help from Jacksonville's fire department, who arrived via the Florida East Coast Railway. [2]
Hotel guests fled neighboring structures in their night clothes into a blaze of light, visible from the outskirts of the city. Clothing, furniture, and belongings rescued from the fire were heaped on the green in front of Fort Marion and on the Plaza, which the owners tried to sort out for days. Due to crowds of refugees and spectators, Mayor A W Corbett called out the militia to prevent looting. Saint George Street was littered with fallen electric wires and the electric light plant was shut down. [3]
Newspapers reported only one fatality caused by the fire. Alice Smith of Amherst, Nova Scotia, [4] leapt from the third floor of the Florida House and was taken to a hospital with a broken back. She did not recover. A man named Libby, another guest of the hotel, leaped from the second floor, and broke his leg. A number of others were less seriously hurt. [5]
The Bemidji Daily Pioneer estimated property damage at $500,000 to $750,000. [6] The Keowee Courier estimated damage at $400,000. [7]
Atlantic Hotel was on Bay Street beside The Monson and opened in 1910.
Bennett House was at the corner of Bay and Cuna Streets, and opened in 1910.
Central Hotel was at 84 Charlotte, north of Treasury Street. Henry E Hernandez, who later owned the Ocean View Hotel, operated the Central until 1910. [8]
Capo's Bath House was an octagonal-shaped building located on a bay pier near 20 Bay Street across from Baya Lane throughout the Flagler Era. It was owned by Philip V Capo and operated by Adolphus N Pacetty, providing hot and cold sea water, sulfur water baths, and shower baths. It was popular among tourists before access to the beaches was improved. [9]
Florida House was located on 131 Saint George street near the Plaza. It was advertised in Elias Nason's 1884 Chapins Hand Book of Saint Augustine as featuring 131 large rooms, elegant furnishings, good ventilation, and gas lights. A steam passenger elevator carried guests to the fourth floor. Originally only open in the winter, at the time of the fire the Florida was open all year and the capacity was 250. [10]
Genovar Opera House was on Saint George Street north of Treasury. The theatre hosted traveling companies and had full stage equipment and folding seats. The proprietor was Bartola Genovar, who lost his original Opera House at Charlotte Street and Cuna to a previous fire. [11]
Hotel Clairmont was next to the Opera House on Saint George Street. [12]
Monson House was a wooden boarding house on Bay Street owned and operated by Anthony V Monson and his wife Florence Young. Their original structure burned in an 1895 fire. After 1914, the Monson was replaced by a masonry structure that opened on January 5, 1915, and remained a fixture on Saint Augustine's bay front until 1960. [13]
Saint Johns County Court House was located on the southwest corner of Charlotte and Treasury Streets. It was built in 1907 and burned in 1914. The replacement courthouse was built on its foundations in 1918, and was active until the county government moved into the former Cordova Hotel in 1968.
The Vedder Museum was located on Bay Street at the corner of Treasury and was called "the oldest hotel in America" in a newspaper account of the fire. [14] It was named for Dr John Vedder, who opened a permanent museum for his collection of curiosities and animal specimens in the 1880s. The museum was purchased by the Saint Augustine Historical Society after Vedder's death in 1899. SAHS relocated to the Gonzales-Alvarez House (The Oldest House), which was purchased October 3, 1918. [15] The Vedder was situated next to the bay side entrance to Treasury Street, which was only 6'-1" wide and frequently featured on postcards as "The Narrowest Street in the United States".
Flagler College is a private liberal arts college in St. Augustine, Florida. It was founded in 1968 and offers 33 undergraduate majors and one master's program. It also has a campus in Tallahassee.
Henry Morrison Flagler was an American industrialist and a founder of Standard Oil, which was first based in Ohio. He was also a key figure in the development of the Atlantic coast of Florida and founder of the Florida East Coast Railway. He is also known as a founder of the cities of Miami and Palm Beach, Florida.
Carrère and Hastings, the firm of John Merven Carrère and Thomas Hastings, was one of the outstanding American Beaux-Arts architecture firms. Located in New York City, the firm practiced from 1885 until 1929, although Carrère died in an automobile accident in 1911.
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The Ponce de Leon Hotel, also known as The Ponce, was an exclusive luxury hotel in St. Augustine, Florida, built by millionaire developer and Standard Oil co-founder Henry M. Flagler and completed in 1888. The hotel was designed in the Spanish Renaissance style as the first major project of the New York architecture firm Carrère & Hastings, which would go on to gain world renown.
The Royal Poinciana Hotel was a Gilded Age hotel in Palm Beach, Florida, United States. Developed by Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler and approximately 1,000 workers, the hotel opened on February 11, 1894. As Flagler's first structure in South Florida, the Royal Poinciana Hotel played a significant role in the region's history, transforming the previously desolate area into a winter tourist destination and accelerating the development of Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. Two months later, Flagler's Florida East Coast Railway reached West Palm Beach, while a railroad bridge built across the Lake Worth Lagoon in 1895 allowed guests direct access to the hotel. In 1896, Flagler opened a second hotel nearby, The Breakers. The success of both hotels led to expansions of the Royal Poinciana Hotel in 1899 and 1901. By then, the building had reportedly become both the largest hotel and largest wooden structure in the world at the time.
Grace United Methodist Church is a historic church donated to the people of St. Augustine, Florida, by American industrialist Henry Morrison Flagler. It is located at 8 Carrera Street. Built within a one-year span, it was added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places on November 29, 1979, for its architectural significance and as an example of community planning.
The Ormond Hotel was a historic hotel in Ormond Beach, Florida, United States. It was located at 15 East Granada Boulevard.
The Royal Palm Hotel was a large resort hotel built by railroad magnate Henry Flagler in Miami, Florida. Opened on January 16, 1897, the Royal Palm Hotel was one of the first hotels in the Miami area. It sat on the north bank of the Miami River where it overlooked Biscayne Bay. Five stories tall with a sixth-floor salon, the Royal Palm Hotel featured the city's first electric lights, elevators and swimming pool. Almost thirty years later, The Royal Palm Hotel was grievously damaged by the 1926 hurricane, and infested with termites. In 1930, it was condemned and torn down.
The St. Augustine movement was a part of the wider Civil Rights Movement, taking place in St. Augustine, Florida from 1963 to 1964. It was a major event in the city's long history and had a role in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The Memorial Presbyterian Church is a historic church constructed in St. Augustine, Florida, in 1889 by American industrialist Henry Morrison Flagler. It is located at 32 Sevilla Street. It was dedicated to the memory of his daughter Jennie Louise Benedict, who died following complications from childbirth at sea in March 1889.
Flagler Hospital, based in unincorporated St. Johns County, Florida, is a not-for-profit facility established in 1889. The organization offers "Centers of Excellence" in bariatrics, heart, cancer, maternity, orthopedics and sinus. Currently being sold with announcement on new owner by the end of Jan 2023
Felix F. de Crano was an impressionist artist in New England, St. Augustine, Florida and Europe. He is listed as a Great Floridian.
St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the continental United States, was founded in 1565 by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés. The Spanish Crown issued an asiento to Menéndez, signed by King Philip II on March 20, 1565, granting him various titles, including that of adelantado of Florida, and expansive privileges to exploit the lands in the vast territory of Spanish Florida, called La Florida by the Spaniards. This contract directed Menéndez to explore the region's Atlantic coast and report on its features, with the object of finding a suitable location to establish a permanent colony from which the Spanish treasure fleet could be defended and Spain's claimed territories in North America protected against incursions by other European powers.
The González-Jones House is a historic home built during the First Spanish Period (1565–1763) in Saint Augustine, Florida. It is located at 56 Marine Street, one block north of the González–Alvarez House and the Saint Francis Barracks. This neighborhood includes nine colonial structures that survive in clusters along Marine and Saint Francis Streets. These buildings are all assumed to have been built after 1702, when the city was destroyed during a British siege.
The Monson Motor Lodge, at 32 Avenida Menendez, Saint Augustine, Florida, was in 1964 the site of a landmark protest event of the Civil Rights Movement. The site was before that occupied by the Monson House, a 19th-century boarding house.
Capo's Bath House was an iconic structure that appeared in many images of the Saint Augustine, Florida waterfront during 1870–1914. Capo's occupied an octagonal-shaped building located on a bay pier near 20 Bay Street across from Baya Lane throughout the Flagler Era. It appears in a sketch from 1875 that shows a wood building on a stone foundation across the street from the Old Spanish Prison and the residence of George H Emery.
Fred A Henderich was a leading architect of the Florida land boom of the 1920s. He was a native of New York and graduated from Columbia University. Henderich came to Saint Augustine in 1905 to work for Henry Flagler's Florida East Coast Hotel Company and lived and worked in the city for over twenty years.
The St. Augustine Historical Society (SAHS) is a membership organization committed to the preservation and interpretation of historically significant structures, artifacts, and documentary materials related to St. Augustine, Florida. Formally organized on New Years Day 1883, SAHS is the oldest continuously operating museum and historical society in Florida. In 1899, the society purchased the Vedder Museum on Bay Street where it exhibited historical and scientific curiosities until losing its holdings in the Saint Augustine Fire of 1914. In 1920, SAHS successfully lobbied for federal restoration of Fort Matanzas, and in 1965, it played a significant role in the restoration of numerous historic sites in preparation for the St. Augustine quadricentennial.