Legend has it that Juan Ponce de León discovered Florida while searching for the Fountain of Youth. While that tale is probably untrue, the lovely southern state certainly feels effervescent with its ocean-scented air and its flourishing, year-round greenery. At least, it feels that way to a Wisconsinite visiting the state after a long winter, which I did this spring, hungry for the promise of warmth and life.
Whether or not he was motivated by the tantalizing tale of water that bestowed unending life, Ponce de León, governor of Puerto Rico and former companion of Columbus, waded ashore on the peninsula around 1513, somewhere near the present-day city of St. Augustine, Florida, the oldest continuously occupied settlement of European origin in the United States. He claimed the land for his king and faith, naming it “La Florida” because he came to it during the Easter season, known in Spain as “pascua florida”—“feast of flowers.”
