The Fountain of Youth

The Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León is said to have come looking for a spring that restored youth when he landed on this coast in 1513 and named the place Florida. He never found it, and probably never really sought it, the legend grew after his death, but it fixed itself forever to Florida’s endless springs. An archaeological park in St. Augustine marks the traditional landing, over real 16th-century Spanish and Timucua ground.