Anastasia Island Home Movie

Home movie footage donated by Kevin Houck. The footage contains images of a young man riding on an incumbent bicycle along the beach of Anastasia Island, Florida, as well as a young girl building a sandcastle and playing in the water with family. The first known European settlement of Anastasia Island was a short-lived colony led by Spanish Admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés (1519-1574) in 1556. Jesse Fish (ca. 1725-1790) was awarded a land grant, which included Anastasia Island, from the Spanish crown. Fish established a plantation, which included an orange grove, called El Vergel (The Orchard) in 1763. Two years after his death, the land was auctioned to Fish's son, Jesse Fish, Jr. During the Florida land boom of the 1920s, David Paul Davis developed neighborhood of Davis Shores, located at the north end of the island. Davis Shores served as barracks for soliders during World War II, and the St. Augustine Light Station was occupied by the U.S. Coast Guard.