Coquina Chronicles

Coquina Chronicles Exploring St Augustine’s real history and the legends we’ve built around it.

12/31/2025

There really is a hidden red light during Nights of Lights, but the story you may have heard about it might be wrong. Here's what actually happens, who is responsible, and why it appears.

12/26/2025

By Christmas of 1919, World War I was officially over. The armistice had been signed, and the soldiers were home. For the first time in years, Christmas felt normal again. That year, the St Augustine Evening Record printed more than 180 letters to Santa from local children. And on the surface, the wishes looked familiar: Dolls, bicycles, games, candy, and fruit. But when you read the letters closely, the war hasn’t completely disappeared. It’s still there, just much quieter.

12/26/2025

Over the last few days, I’ve shared letters to Santa written by children in St Augustine during World War I. These are a few letters that didn’t quite fit into the other themes - but they stayed with me.

12/22/2025

In the early 1900s, the St Augustine Evening Record invited children to write letters to Santa to be published in a special Christmas edition of the paper every year. The paper printed instructions, set deadlines, and promised to deliver the letters to Santa. And in 1918, they did it again. Throughout early December, the Record announced a special Christmas edition and repeatedly called for children’s letters, just as they had in years before. But the letters are no longer there.

12/21/2025

Dear Santa: Learning to ask for less

12/21/2025

In 1917, some kids in St Augustine asked Santa to bring them guns - so they could help fight the Germans.

12/19/2025

In 1917, the US entered World War I and Christmas in St Augustine had a new character: “the soldier boys.”

12/18/2025

By Christmas 1917, St Augustine kids weren’t just thinking about their own stockings anymore. Some of them were worrying about children thousands of miles away in the middle of a war.

12/17/2025

In August of 1917, St Augustine got something new: a roller-skating rink under a big tent on the site of the old opera house on St George Street. The Evening Record said skating would “probably again become popular in St Augustine, as it was many years ago,” and they were right. That Christmas, children began writing to Santa asking for their own skates.

12/16/2025

In 1916, the kids writing to Santa in St Augustine mostly wanted to play cowboys and Indians. But by Christmas 1917, after the United States entered World War I, the costumes started to change.

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