THE OLD CITY GATE 558 PEDRO MENENDEZ DE AVILES, FOUNDER OF ST. AUGUSTINE 560 OLD FORGE 562 OLD SPANISH FORT ON MATANZAS RIVER 565 THE OLDEST HOUSE IN ST. AUGUSTINE 569 RUINS OF THE OLD SPANISH FORT AT MATANZAS INLET 573 HOTEL PONCE DE LEON 579 SEAL OF ST. AUGUSTINE 581 [Illustration] [Illustration] INTRODUCTION BY W. P. TRENT Probably the first feeling of the reader who glances over the table of contents of this volume will be one of surprise at the number of Southern towns of historical importance that the editor has seen fit and been able to include. Neither from our study of American history nor from our study of geography have we been led to look upon the Southern States as a region characterized by urban development. Those of us who took the pains to examine the statistics of the census of 1890 remember that the South stood far behind the other sections in this respect. We remember, too, to have seen in our histories the thickly settled New England township contrasted with the large, sparsely settled Southern county. In literature the South has figured as a region of plantations and manor houses inhabited by cavaliers and chatelaines and old family slaves, possessors of all the feudal virtues, or else as the home of a curious race, presumably Caucasian, known as “crackers,” and of equally curious mountaineers known as “moonshiners.” An exception is made, of course, in favor of New Orleans, the home of the Creole and the carnival; of Charleston, the home of secession; of Richmond, the home of the Confederate government; and of St. Augustine, the home of hotels; but on the whole it is probable that the average American of other sections, unless he be a drummer or a valetudinarian tourist, rarely thinks of the South from the point of view of its towns, historic or unhistoric. For this state of affairs no one is to blame. The great growth of municipalities in the North, East and West--the colossal development of New York, Chicago and Philadelphia, of Boston and Baltimore and a dozen other great cities--has naturally cast in the shade the urban status of a section that contains no city of three hundred thousand inhabitants. It is true that much is heard of the New South with its commercial future; but probably the pushing Atlanta is almost the only Southern city that has in the last few decades impressed itself to any marked degree upon the nation’s consciousness.