Why Nobody Goes to St. Augustine, Florida Anymore

Subscribe to the channel: https://www.youtube.com/@FloridaGilded/videos%E2%80%A2%20?sub_confirmation=1 On a January night in 1888, a 540-room hotel wired for Edison's electricity opened in the oldest city in America, and some guests were too afraid to touch the light switches. Henry Flagler had turned sleepy St. Augustine into the most fashionable town in Florida — and then kept laying track south, toward Palm Beach and Miami, every new mile making his first grand hotel a little less special. The crowds eventually came back, but the people the town was built for never did. Here's how one railroad built a Gilded Age resort and then left it behind. Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ponce_de_Leon_Hotel https://www.nps.gov/NR/travel/geo-flor/26.htm https://jaxtoday.org/2024/08/14/the-jaxson-the-gilded-era-hotels-of-henry-flagler/