coquina

The Famous Fort in St. Augustine That Was Built of Seashells

the Castillo de San Marcos fort — Castillo de San Marcos Fort in St. Augustine, Florida

Photo credit: By National Park Service (http://www.nps.gov) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons – click the photo to visit the page.
One area of Florida that is worth the visit is historic St. Augustine. Henry Flagler took an interest in the area and built the Ponce de Leon Hotel which is now Flagler College. Visitors began coming and haven’t stopped. But that is another story.

I recently took another trip to St. Augustine and you can read about it here.

I find the history of the old fort in St. Augustine, Florida fascinating. Located on the east coast of Florida, the Castillo de San Marcos (which means St. Mark’s Castle) is right on the Intracoastal Waterway. Today it serves as a tourist attraction with many visitors trudging over those thick walls each day, but it was built long ago to protect the people of a Spanish settlement.

The Spanish settled in the St. Augustine in 1565 and built forts of wood which were too easily destroyed. Flimsy wood was either burned by attackers, or destroyed by storms. They needed a better and sturdier line of defense. So they came up with an ingenious idea. Continue reading “The Famous Fort in St. Augustine That Was Built of Seashells”

Tiny Coquina Shells Used to Build a Fort

Coquina shells are tiny and numerous and can be seen all along the Florida coastline. These are the tiny shells you may see quickly digging into the sand as the surf receded from the beach. The beach seemingly comes alive as the tiny Coquina quickly cover themselves over and over. The sea birds eat them, and it looks to me like the shells are in a constant game of hide and seek – for their life!

It’s quite amazing that these little shells, when grouped together, make up a material which is hard enough to be used to build a structure, much less a huge fort! But that is what the historical Castillo de San Marcos fort in St. Augustine, Florida was made from. Yes, the basic material for those big walls is tiny seashells!

castillo de san marcos fort — Inside the Castillo de San Marcos Fort in St. Augustine, Florida

Seashell Identification ~ Coquina

The tiny Coquina shell is found all over the Florida beaches (it’s the small shell in the photo below), but they are usually busy digging themselves back under the sand each time the waves wash over them. They can be found in many pretty colors and I have only one…because they were so numerous and I wasn’t very interested in collecting them. See a nice picture at this link.

Shown here with two Turkey Wing shells, the little coquina shell was used in building material and many structures were built in Florida using it. The famous fort in St. Augustine, Castillo de San Marcos, is an example. Read more about the fort and the coquina used to build it on this page and other structures built totally or partially with coquina rock.

I had a large “rock” of coquina in my yard which I used as a decoration, since Florida is devoid of “real” rocks – unless they’ve been imported.