Why America Can't Save Its Oldest City

My book, The Times You Grew Up With, takes you back: https://paulmcallister.store St. Augustine, Florida was founded in 1565 — forty-two years before Jamestown. Its fort, the Castillo de San Marcos, was built from a soft local shellstone called coquina that absorbed British cannonballs and was never taken by force. Henry Flagler turned the forgotten garrison town into a Gilded Age resort with the Ponce de León Hotel in 1888, one of America’s first major poured-concrete buildings, made with coquina aggregate from the same quarry that supplied the fort. In 1964, the civil rights movement came to St. Augustine, and what happened at the Monson Motor Lodge helped push the Civil Rights Act to a vote. The city survived everything — siege, fire, invasion, empire, neglect. Now salt water backs up through its storm drains a dozen times a year, on clear days, under ordinary tides. Hurricanes Matthew and Irma flooded its historic districts in back-to-back years. A $19.9 million seawall under construction along the bayfront sat unfinished when king tides hit again in October 2026. The oldest continuously occupied European-founded city in the continental United States cannot be raised, relocated, or rebuilt without destroying the thing that makes it worth saving. This is the story of a place that was always in exactly the right location — until it wasn’t. Sources: National Park Service — Castillo de San Marcos National Monument City of St. Augustine — Tidal Flooding Mitigation & Resilience Planning Jacksonville Today — St. Augustine flooding coverage, 2020–2026 Florida Department of Transportation — Seawall Replacement Project (FPID 446 277-1) University of Florida — Historic St. Augustine damage assessments, post-Hurricane Matthew National Park Service — Lincolnville Historic District, St. Augustine