Sunday Favorites: The First Road

ST. AUGUSTINE – This holiday season, when you are traveling to see your loved ones, you probably won’t even think twice about jumping on the interstate to reach your destination. But long ago, things weren’t as simple. Coming to Florida was a treacherous journey that robbed many lives.

In the 16th Century, Florida was covered in impenetrable underbrush that puzzled new world settlers who had taken ships and crossed vast oceans to get here. Their attempts to tackle the tough terrain often led to death, disease and destruction.

In addition to daunting, bug-infested landscapes, there were also hostile natives to worry about with poison arrows. They did not take foreign intruders manipulating their land lightly.

During the 1500s, a few French colonies were settled in the Florida wilds. When the king of Spain got wind of this, he commissioned naval officer Pedro Menendez de Aviles to sail to Florida, drive out the French and settle the land.

His armada of 11 ships and 2000 people crossed the Atlantic in 1556. They planned to sail up the St. John’s River to Fort Caroline, a popular French settlement. Instead, the colonists settled in a small southern harbor, planning to surprise the residents of Fort Caroline by ambushing them via land.

Of the 2,000 men, women and children that sailed to Florida from Spain, only about 800 survived the journey, according to Exploring Florida, ”A Short History of Florida.“ Once they set up their camp on the harbor, they began referring to it as St. Augustine.

Among the settlers were 20 strong-armed Asturians and Basques who miraculously blazed a path through Florida terrain with axes. Menendez directed them through the unfamiliar landscape with the help of his compass.

The men must have done a good job clearing the underbrush, because 200 years later, the same path connected St. Augustine and another budding village, which eventually became known as Jacksonville. The path connecting the two cities became King’s Road.

The sandy trail the Spaniards named King’s Road continued to develop over the years, but was in no way a perfect thoroughfare. At one intersection there was a large mound of sand reputed to be the first city’s second line of defense, but it became a nuisance for families traveling via horse and buggy to nearby farms, as getting over the mound was close to impossible.

In addition, a high spring tide would often cover the whole road and back up traffic for hours, creating what we might refer to today as a ”traffic jam.“

City officials called for the road to be paved in oyster shells, but the contractor did not remove the oysters from the shells, so for months the road would be covered with seabirds, buzzards and crows feasting on the new crop of seafood nicely ripened in the noonday sun.

Oyster shells eventually became bricks. But the brick road was so narrow that if two cars met head on, one would be forced off the road and often got stuck.

The little spans of road is now today’s U.S. 1. So the next time you are traveling down the interstate at 70 miles per hour, take the time to reflect on the transgression of the first road in Florida, as well as the U.S.