Salvaging the seawall

Salvaging the seawall

Mica: Stimulus might bring seawall money

By PETER GUINTA
peter.guinta@staugustine.com
Publication Date: 12/24/08


President-elect Barack Obama's proposed $700 billion to $1 trillion stimulation package may be one way to get the $6 million to $8 million needed to replace St. Augustine's historic but crumbling seawall.

U.S. Rep. John Mica, R-Winter Park, suggested as much recently at an economic development meeting in St. Johns County when St. Augustine Vice Mayor Errol Jones brought up the possibility.

Jones said, "The seawall is in bad shape. If we get another major storm, we're going to lose it. I don't think the people of St. Augustine realize the importance of saving the seawall."

Mica spokesman Wiley Deck said the 111th Congress, due to be sworn in on Jan. 6, "will stay in session through January so they have bills ready to go when President Obama takes office (on Jan. 20)."

The national stimulus package for transportation and infrastructure projects must be ready to start construction immediately, Deck said.

"If we're not successful in (getting the money from the infrastructure bill), we'll write an appropriations request. That may be another way of getting the funding," he said.

The only remaining portion of the historic seawall runs from King Street to the south end of St. Francis Barracks.

Built between 1833 and 1844, the coquina under the granite cap stones has crumbled after 165 years, and the slabs themselves are unstable in places. Several have fallen into the sea and had to be recovered over the last few years.

The corner near St. Francis Barracks was braced with concrete some years ago, and the facing covering the coquina has broken in many places.

Jones said, "(The project) will protect the historic wall and protect the city."

According to John Regan, chief operating officer for St. Augustine, the seawall project has been ready to go for years.

"We've already finished with the design, engineering and permitting," he said. "All it needs is money."

He said the city will be in discussion with Mica's office in January.

"We're going to give (the plan) a shot. This came up very quickly," he said.

Years ago, the city presented a plan to residents that would mean building a new, slightly higher seawall 10 feet out into the Matanzas River, enclosing the old seawall within a park-like area behind the wall, featuring trees, lighting, benches, trash cans, disability ramps and a railing atop the new wall.

The old seawall would be encased up to the slabs, so visitors could view those historic stones, but not the coquina.

The city's plan was seen as acceptable by residents attending community meetings, but there remains those who say the old seawall will be buried if this plan is adopted, destroying a historic landmark. Other city residents said the plan seemed "Disney-esque" and would draw too many outsiders to a quiet historic neighborhood.

Historian David Nolan of St. Augustine said the 1,100 feet of the current wall is the "longest, most visible piece of coquina construction, and they're going to cover it up. It's a case of marching off in the wrong direction and never listening to the option of saving it."

He wants an engineer with experience in historic preservation to look at it and come up with a plan to save the wall.

"The north end of the sea wall was destroyed in the late 1950s," he said. "To destroy the south end would be a real tragedy. It would change the entire look of the city."

Deck said the financing plan for the seawall "is very exciting."

He said the infrastructure bill already has $150 million for completion of the State Road 9B project, which would bring it right up to the St. Johns County line with Duval.

"Congressman Mica is perfectly placed as the lead representative for transportation and infrastructure," Deck said. "He wants to make sure Florida gets its fair share."

City's seawall a major landmark

St. Augustine's seawall was built between 1833 and 1844, the same time U.S. troops in Florida were fighting the bloody Second Seminole War.

The coquina used as a base for the granite capping stones was quarried on Anastasia Island, about where the state park is now. However, the granite came from Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

According to historical markers near the wall, the project was an example of work assigned to graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, the first engineering school in the country.

The seawall was one of the earliest federally funded projects in the territory of Florida.

The officers involved in building it were first lieutenants Steven Tuttle ((1797-1835), Francis L. Dancy (1806-1890), Henry W. Benham (1818-1884) and Jeremy F. Gilmer (1818-1883).

The narrow granite caps were placed atop successively smaller coquina slabs.

St. Augustine historian David Nolan said the wall was built using slaves rented by the Army. Ironically, the wording of a municipal ordinance in 1852 said, "It shall not hereafter be lawful for colored persons (bond or free) to use the sea wall as a place for promenading and are strictly forbidden to walk thereon."

The penalty for a violation was "not less than $2 or more than $5, or (whipping) stripes of not less than 10 or more than 31 be laid bare on the back of the offender."

The wall -- for whites, anyway -- was known at "the lovers' wall."

Nolan said one of the lieutenants deliberately made it only wide enough for two people holding tight to each other to walk. Chaperones had to walk behind them.

Benham was a Union general, and Gilmer, a Confederate. Tuttle is buried in the St. Augustine National Cemetery, and Dancy became Quartermaster General for the Confederate Army in Florida.


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