Heritage Guides

Many Tours Start at the Spring

Green Cove Springs Tours is a division of Heritage Guides.

Ask About tour of the Military Museum of North Florida 

Heritage Guides  904-449-4607  or   tours@artyeaman.com

Juan Ponce de Leon

GREEN COVE SPRINGS, FLORIDA
AKA:
"Pirates Cove"
"The Original Fountain of Youth"
"White Sulfur Springs"
"The Saratoga of the South"
"Home of the Navy's Mothball Fleet"
"Little Detroit"

If Ponce de Leon had ventured inland.

Often credited with discovering Florida, the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon (a man obsessed with youth) having desires live long.  His passion for that immortality led him to Florida fueling his quest for what the natives claim to be "crystal waters flowing from living springs in which he who bathed would be instantly endowed with eternal youth and great beauty."

Tales of his quest for the "Fountain of Youth," sailing from island to island, beach to beach, bathing in small stream or lake are numerous.  It is sad the on Easter morning, 1513, de Leon and his crew came ashore near the site of St. Augustine.  However, they did not forge inland, beyond coastline, but turned south, returning to Puerto Rico years later -- no treasures -- or youth.

Had Ponce de Leon traveled inward and westward across the St. Johns River, he very likely would have discovered the land that would later be known as Green Cove Springs and the place of his dreams. 

Green Cove Springs, Florida

History reveals that people tend to give communities a nick name. 

This is very true for our neck of the woods. Green Cove Springs located on high ground at a wide spot on the St. Johns River.  We are on the west bank, mid-way between Jacksonville aka "Cowford" and Palatka.  We are in a cove south of Magnolia Point and Green Cove Point and north of Red Bay Point.  We have a "boil" also known as a spring, ours is a warm (78 degrees) mineral spring the water flows into a pool then on to the "run" as it makes a contribution to the north flowing St. Johns River while renders nutrients creating emerald green foliage on the banks and wetlands.  The people in Green Cove still "take the waters"...

Legend has it that in 1513, at the time of the spring equinoxes, the Spanish explorer, Ponce de Leon, a man who was obsessed with youth and had a great desire to extend his time on earth.  His obsession led him to Florida.  The natives told him about warm crystal clear waters boiling from the Florida earth a result of bathing in the water one would be instantaneously gifted with everlasting youth.  He came in search of the Fountain of Youth, de Leon and his crew came ashore near the site of present day St. Augustine, Florida, then followed the coastline south, to the keys and beyond never to find the Fountain of Youth.

Legend has it, if Ponce de Leon had traveled inland... Westward... crossed the north flowing river and ventured to the emerald green banks perhaps... just perhaps he would have bathed in our very own Green... Cove... Spring...  

For many of us that live here this is Paradise... a great place to End Your Search and The Original Fountain of Youth..

A large percentage of our early visitors and settlers arrived via our water ways.  Legend has that we were once known as "Pirates Cove", with tales that Blackbeard buried his gems in the area surrounding the spring.  Our first recorded name is "White Sulfur Springs".  As we progressed through the Spanish and British colonial periods were known to be Timber Land and Green Cove Springs was the place to set up Lumber Mills and later Cattle Land.  We became a "Haven for Yankees" that did not want to return north after the war between the states. Clay County (named for our Nations 9th Secretary of State Henry Clay, (1777-1852) "The Great Compromiser") was carved out of Duval County in 1858 by 1871 Green Cove Springs was the "The County Seat" and still has that title today.

As the tour boats arrived with more northerners we celebrated our most widely known name "Saratoga of the South" Green Cove Springs, Florida was to the St. Johns River what Saratoga, New York was to the Hudson River.  We were a "Water Hole" for wealthy northerners and the "Parlor City of the South".  Green Cove became a prime tourist attraction, famous for the warm, therapeutic springs.  The sulfur springs, or the "boil" as it was called brought wealthy visitors down the St. Johns River by steamboat to vacation at the grand hotels like the Clarendon, Riverside, St. Elmo and later the Qui-Si-Sana. The visitors drank from the spring believing in its medicinal values. 

Tourists arrived by train... fewer by the river... the tourist where carried south to new Florida frontier.  Green Cove took a nap and woke up, in the land boom of the 1920's and the arrival of J.C. Penney.  The stock market crashed, followed by a depression, we became a "WPA Town"  (Work Progress Administration).  We began to see more planes over Green Cove and more automobiles traveling our sandy roads.  The Navy Base had ships and airplanes, making us a "Navy Town" and later the "Home of the Atlantic Moth Ball Fleet." The progress continued with jobs.  Families were in need of personal transportation.  Car dealers flocked to Green Cove... we became know as "Little Detroit".

During the 1960's Walt Disney and the National Space Program (NASA) had their eyes on Green Cove Springs. However, we did not make the selection.... YES, we are not home of Disney World and or the Houston Space Center.  Mark my word, you have never heard the phrase "Green Cove Springs We Have Problem" repeated over and over again. 

Some folks claim Green Cove Springs is home of the "The Good Old Boys" and then reference a politician that has "done wrong"  Well'.. Thank God and/or the "Good Old Boys" because we are not Houston, Texas or Orlando, Florida.  We are unique with traditional values, natural features and historical characteristics.

Had Ponce de Leon traveled inward and westward across the St. Johns River, he very likely would have discovered the land that would later be known as Green Cove Springs and the place of his dreams.