Monson Motor Lodge site

On the bayfront at 32 Avenida Menéndez — today the site of a waterfront hotel — once stood the Monson Motor Lodge, scene of two of the most widely photographed moments of the 1964 St. Augustine Movement.

On June 11, 1964, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested here while trying to eat at the segregated restaurant — one of the few arrests of his career. One week later, on June 18, as Black and white activists swam together in the motel pool in an act of protest, the manager poured acid into the water to force them out. A police officer jumped in to arrest the swimmers. The images ran in newspapers around the world the same week the Civil Rights Act cleared the Senate.

The lodge was demolished in 2003 and a hotel now occupies the site. A historical marker on the bayfront recounts what happened here. It sits within a short walk of the Plaza, the old market, and the other stops on the city’s civil rights trail.