Spanish engineer Ignacio Daza designed Castillo de San Marcos as a hollow square with diamond-shaped bastions at each of its four corners. Named St. Pedro, St. Carlos, St. Augustine, and St. Pablo, the bastions connect by thick walls that provided soldiers with a good overview of the area, particularly the sea, from which the Spanish expected most of the attacks to come. From the bastions they could also shoot at the enemy from multiple directions, creating a crossfire effect. The walls, built from more than 400,000 blocks of coquina stone, with thickness ranging from 14 to 19 feet at the base and tapering to nine feet at the top, afforded the necessary protection from enemy fire. Castillo de San Marcos stands today as a monument to the Spanish empire’s 300-year occupation of Florida and to the interaction and clashes of cultural groups that built the unified nation that is the United States today. Constructed to protect Spain’s settlement in St. Augustine from pirate raids, hostile American Indian tribes, and neighboring imperial powers, the fortification is a symbol of the cultural and imperial struggles that shaped early North America. Never captured in battle, Castillo de San Marcos is both architecturally impressive as the oldest surviving masonry fortress in the United States and culturally significant because its stone walls are a testament to the endurance of this nation’s Latino heritage and to the other cultural groups that have played a role in its story.

Drink DuJour:

Sources :

https://wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Twenty-facts-about-St-Augustine-FL

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/fl-staugustineghosts/

https://ghostcitytours.com/st-augustine/haunted-places/castillo-de-san-marcos/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castillo_de_San_Marcos

https://www.nps.gov/people/osceola

https://www.staugustine.com/story/news/local/2010/03/21/fort-undergoing-major-repairs/16089958007/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uchee_Billy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Florida

https://www.visitstaugustine.com/history/motor-age/castillo-menendez.php

https://www.staugustinedistillery.com/blog/st-augustine-distillery-story

The Crescent Hotel was built in 1886 as a resort for the rich and famous, but quickly became unmanageable and fell into disrepair. In 1908, it was reopened as the Crescent College and Conservatory for Young Women. This institution closed down in 1924, and then opened again in 1930 as a junior college. After the college closed in 1934, the Crescent was leased as a summer hotel.

In 1937, it got a new owner, Norman G. Baker, who turned the place into a hospital and health resort. Baker, a millionaire inventor and radio personality, styled himself as a doctor, despite having had no medical training. He claimed to have discovered a number of "cures" for various ailments, including cancer, and launched frequent attacks on organized medicine, which he accused of being corrupt and profit-driven.

Having been run out of Iowa for practicing medicine without a license, Baker moved his cancer patients to Arkansas and advertised his new health resort at the Crescent. His "cure" consisted primarily of drinking the area's natural spring water. In 1940, federal charges were filed against Baker for mail fraud and he spent four years in prison. The Crescent Hotel was left ownerless until 1946. In the spring of 1946, the Crescent Hotel was purchased by John R. Constantine, Herbert E. Shutter, Herbert Byfield, and Dwight Nichols. On March 15, 1967, the hotel was nearly burned to the ground. The only living owner at this time was Dwight Nichols.

In 1997, Marty and Elise Roenigk purchased the Crescent Hotel for $1.3 million. They oversaw a six-year restoration and renovation of the hotel rooms. Marty Roenigk died in a car crash in 2009; Elise Roenigk remains the hotel's current owner.

The building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2016.

Theodora's Spicy Secret

Ghost Pepper Vodka

Midori

Watermelon Lemonade

https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ar-crescenthotel/

http://www.americasmosthauntedhotel.com/

https://crescent-hotel.com/blog/unexplained-happenings-at-americas-most-haunted-hotel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Hotel_(Eureka_Springs,_Arkansas)

Southern Serial Killers

This episode April and Christi are joined with return guest host Kristen to discuss Southern Serial Killers: Donald Lee Evans, Aileen Wuornos, and The Storyville Slayer.

Drink du jour:

Mississippi Fire Ant Southern Prohibition Brewing Hattiesburg, MS

Red Ale Imperial

8% ABV

Roasted and toasted caramel notes layered between spicy, fruity and herbal hops

Storyville Slayer Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StoryvilleSlayer

State v. Elwood - https://caselaw.findlaw.com/la-court-of-appeal/1294530.html

https://murderpedia.org/male.E/e/ellwood-russell.htm

https://973thedawg.com/serial-killer-calls-howard-stern-clay-the-serial-killer-russell-ellwood/

https://murdermurder.news/news/the-storyville-slayer-part-ii

Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Ciller (1993)

Nick Broomfield

oxygen.com

Aileen Wuornos Timeline: “How She Became the Damsel of Death”, Crime News

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/os-xpm-1997-05-28-9705271294-story.html

https://the-line-up.com/the-rest-area-killer-donald-leroy-evans

https://murderpedia.org/male.E/e/evans-donald-leroy.htm/

https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ms-supreme-court/1046084.html#:~:text=%C2%B6%201.,he%20confessed%20to%20murdering%20Beatrice/

https://www.deseret.com/1991/8/17/18936395/charges-filed-in-slaying-of-10-year-old-girl/