Ponce de Leon's First Glimpse of Florida

Some historians believe that somewhere off the coast near here, Juan Ponce de Leon first sighted what would become Florida on April second, fifteen thirteen. He had sailed from Puerto Rico weeks earlier with three vessels. When his fleet calculated its position and saw land to the west, Ponce de Leon named it La Florida, either for the Easter feast of flowers, Pascua Florida, or for the lush vegetation he observed from offshore.

He came ashore about a day later; the exact landing site is debated, with candidates from near Saint Augustine to Melbourne Beach. He was almost certainly not the first European to reach Florida, but his is the first landing well documented. The visit was brief and the Timucua people he encountered were not welcoming. Ponce de Leon returned in fifteen twenty-one with colonists and was wounded by an arrow during a skirmish near Charlotte Harbor, dying in Cuba shortly afterward. The land he named outlasted him by five centuries.