Oglethorpe Battery Park

Oglethorpe Battery Park is a small, little-known historic park in St. Augustine’s Davis Shores neighborhood, on Anastasia Island. It marks the spot where, in the summer of 1740, General James Oglethorpe – commanding British forces from Georgia and Carolina – placed his siege batteries and bombarded the Castillo de San Marcos across the bay. From June 27 to July 20, 1740, his cannon pounded the fort, but the Castillo’s massive coquina walls absorbed the shot with little damage. Florida’s Spanish governor, Manuel de Montiano, returned fire; the exchange was indecisive. Supplies arriving from Havana relieved a shortage that might have forced St. Augustine to surrender, and with the siege stalemated and hurricane season coming on, Oglethorpe withdrew to Georgia.

Today a coquina obelisk – placed by the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of Science in 1938 – stands at the center of the park, flanked by period cannons mounted on replica carriages. Two coquina garitas, the domed sentry boxes like those on the Castillo’s bastions, sit among the oaks, and a 2013 plaque honors the British Red Ensign that Oglethorpe’s forces carried in the 1740 battle. Shaded by enormous live oaks on a quiet residential street, it’s the kind of place most visitors – and plenty of locals – have never heard of.